Tuesday 16 March 2010

London’s crap Crown Prosecution Service

Chronic failings within the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London have been exposed in a damning report.

Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMcpsi) found some prosecutors neglected their core duties of bringing criminals before courts.


Crown court results in London were "substantially worse" than the national average, the report said.

The findings by the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate

follow a leaked CPS email seen by The Independent which described one south London borough as being in "meltdown".

The press reports focus on the CPS’s failures regarding rape victims and say nothing about cyclists, but its failures extend there too.

Across Europe, motorists are presumed to be at fault in motorist-cyclist collisions. In the UK, even faced with prime evidence of a dead body, a driver does not have to prove his innocence. Instead, the CPS decides whether charges can successfully be brought against the motorist, and can then choose to drop a case entirely.

In Anthony’s case (and as is claimed in Eilidh’s case, and in the cases of many others)
the van driver’s defence that he simply didn't see the cyclists was accepted by the CPS.

Also take note of the first comment here.