UK: CPS failings exposed
01 September 1995
Two cases in September have shown up serious deficiencies in the prosecution criteria and practices of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). On 11 September, two men were committed to trial by Belmarsh magistrates for the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Stephen was a 17-year-old black schoolboy who was killed in a racist attack as he waited for a bus home on 22 April 1993. Two young white men were charged with his murder later in 1993, but the CPS decided, days before the committal, to drop the charges, saying there was insufficient evidence. A year of sustained campaigning by the family and their supporters failed to persuade the CPS to change its mind, despite new evidence being submitted. So the family decided to take out a private prosecution. There is no legal aid for prosecution, so they have had to rely on voluntary donations. Their efforts bore fruit when magistrates ruled that there was a case to answer against two men, Neil Acourt and Luke Knight, whose trial will take place in 1996.
A week after the historic committal, Christopher Davies, who raped one prostitute and indecently assaulted a second, was sent to prison for 14 years after his two victims prosecuted him privately. Police had arrested Davies after the incidents but the CPS had refused to proceed. Both crimes had been committed at knifepoint. The women would not have been able to prosecute without the support of Women Against Rape and the English Collective of Prostitutes. The CPS has been severely criticised for years by women's groups for its failure to take seriously sexual offences, and by anti-racist and police monitoring groups such as the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and the Newham Monitoring Project for its reluctance to prosecute in cases involving racist attacks or allegations against police and prison officers. Now, the Lawrence family and the two women who took their attacker to court have proved the CPS wrong. Campaigners in the west Midlands have also had a victory in their fight with the CPS over its refusal to charge anyone with the murder of Norman Washington Manning, known as Bunson, in Long Lartin prison. The CPS said in March that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges, but months of protests and publicity, including pickets outside its Birmingham regional headquarters, have changed its mind, and someone has now been charged with Bunson's murder.
Independent 20.9.95; "The case against the CPS" and "The CPS: an obstacle to justice" in CARF no 17, November 1993 and no 25, April 1995; see also Statewatch, vol 3 no 3.