Crown Prosecution Service
01 November 1993
The Annual Report of the Crown Prosecution Service for 1992-93 reveals that magistrates acquitted in only one-fifth of contested cases, while juries acquitted in just under half the contested cases in the Crown courts. The majority of defendants in both courts pleaded guilty (81.5% in the magistrates' court, 79% in the Crown court). Just over 20% of the 1.5m cases dealt with by the CPS were discontinued, over one-third of these after committal to the Crown court. In response to public and police criticism of the number of discontinued cases, the CPS has launched a review of the reasons for abandoning cases. The review in turn was criticised for not consulting police or victims of crime. The CPS cost £264 million in public money in the year.
Meanwhile Director of Public Prosecutions Barbara Mills denied allegations by the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism that the CPS is soft on racial attacks, investigating them inadequately and taking inexplicable decisions not to prosecute alleged assailants. "Racial crimes are particularly abhorrent and we take them very seriously", she said. CARF found that defendants in race cases (including racial murders) had been granted bail, that vital witnesses to racial attacks were not followed up, a clear racial motivation behind attacks was often denied, and described as "territorial". In addition, many victims of racial attack were prosecuted and the CPS continued the prosecutions.
CPS Annual Report 1992-93; Independent 9.11.93; CARF No 17 Nov/Dec 1993.