The drive to push novice Crown Prosecution Service advocates into court has led to a decline in the quality of justice, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association said last week.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons justice committee, Peter Lodder QC said: ‘The target-driven approach drives employees into court as often as possible, which leads to people being instructed to present cases they don’t have sufficient experience or competency to do.’

While giving prosecutors advocacy experience is necessary to create an ‘invigorated and active’ service, Lodder said the practice had reduced the number of lawyers available to perform the ‘bedrock functions of simple case preparation’.

Lodder also expressed concern that in-house advocates were more likely than independent counsel to under-charge and accept inappropriate guilty pleas to lesser offences.