The Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have been accused of failing to disclose crucial information about cases, resulting in the defendants’ right to a fair trial potentially being undermined, according to a new report.
Compiled by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and the HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, it found that it was rare for police officers to tell prosecutors about evidence that could undermine their cases or assist the accused’s – known in Legal terms as unused material.
Their recording of sensitive and non- sensitive evidence was “routinely poor”, it said, adding that prosecutors, in turn, were failing to challenge the poor recording of material and carry out their duty to consider what to hand over to the defence throughout the case. This lead to delays and even trials collapsing, it said.
There is a “culture of defeated acceptance” where lawyers would seek to “work around the failings” rather than fixing them, it said.
Inspectors drew their conclusions after examining 146 crown court case files, including 56 that the CPS identified as failing because of disclosure issues.
Inspectors found that in 55.5% of the cases that they reviewed there were obvious disclosure issues before a defendant was charged. Prosecutors only dealt fully with these issues in only one in four cases and in 38.3 % of cases they were not dealt with at all.
Chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association Zoe Gascoyne, blamed “speedy justice” to churn through court cases in a time of cuts to public services. She added that defendants would be “horrified” if they knew the extent of the problem. She said clients could be put in the “dreadful position” of being advised to plead guilty to receive maximum credit without all the evidence been presented to the court.
This is frightening when someone who doesn’t have a previous conviction and a conviction can have a life-changing impact she said.
These findings will surprise no one in the criminal justice system. In a digital age where vast quantities of evidence no longer need to be copied into paper files and can be simply stored on a hard drive, there was less reason to restrict disclosure due to costs involved, the report said.