Something that so many people are finding unfathomable about the Post Office scandal brought to light in the recent television series Mr Bates vs the Post Office is the fact that the Post Office was able to bring so many prosecutions, and to conduct them so appallingly, because they were not supervised, and in effect were answerable to no one.

Professor Child

Professor John Child

Individuals and companies can bring private prosecutions and there is no need for them to involve the police in their investigations nor to gain approval from the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a prosecution. The safeguards that exist all assume either that prosecutors are acting honestly or that those accused can demonstrate otherwise. But no one else knew of the industrial scale of prosecutions in the earlier years, and accused persons are not given privileged access to computer software in order to show its bugs.

In due course then, the Ministry of Justice will need to consider reforms to private prosecutions. And it is here that the reform network I co-direct – the Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN) – will be of assistance, having been working on a review of private prosecutions since 2019 – scheduled for publication in the coming weeks. The MoJ has been on alert to this since 2020 when the Justice Select Committee started receiving evidence on the matter, to which three committee members of the CLRNN contributed, commenting in its response to the committee that it intends to work with our network to consider reforms.

We ourselves do not support abolition of private prosecutions. Our belief is that some private prosecutions do in fact serve the public interest, especially in areas where the police and CPS have effectively retreated under budget cuts. However, it is possible to conceive of a scheme of accreditation and oversight which would apply to companies or large organisations who prosecute, and for magistrates to have greater powers to refuse to issue the summons which institute proceedings, without wholly derailing the valuable work which some private prosecutors do perform. Both measures would likely require primary legislation, but hopefully the time for that might now be found.

 

John Child is professor of criminal law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham

 

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