Crown Prosecution Service (Hansard, 23 February 1999)

The Attorney-General

The table shows the number of cases which the Crown Prosecution Service received from the police, and the number which the Service finalised, in each of the last three years. Both figures are inclusive of cases submitted for pre-charge advice and non-criminal proceedings, and the numbers of these completed in each year are shown separately.

The table then shows the number and the proportion of cases in which a prosecution did not proceed. These outcomes are divided into those cases discontinued by the Service, and those which were written off because the defendant could not be traced or had died, or because proceedings were adjourned indefinitely.

Finally, the table shows the number and proportion of cases in which a prosecution proceeded. These are divided 203W into cases in which the defendant was bound over to keep the peace, those which proceeded to a committal hearing, and those which proceeded to a trial or guilty plea.

The Code for Crown Prosecutors requires that there should be sufficient reliable evidence to give a realistic prospect of conviction, and that the prosecution should be in the public interest. These criteria are applied in every case. Every case discontinued must be reviewed by a Crown Prosecutor and, wherever time allows, the police must be consulted before a decision is taken. The number of cases discontinued against the opinion of the police is very small: a survey conducted in 1994 showed that the police objected to discontinuance on only 4 per cent. of occasions when they were consulted.

However, discontinuance is not primarily the result of a Crown Prosecutor's judgment. More than half of discontinued cases are unable to proceed because witnesses fail to appear at court, refuse to give evidence or change their evidence, defendants produce driving documents proving their innocence on the day of the trial; evidence is excluded because of irregularities in its collection; or due to lack of continuity evidence in the

Crown Prosecution Service magistrates' courts cases 1996–98
	1996	1997	1998
	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage	Number	Percentage
Did not proceed
Discontinued	153,274	12.0	161,461	12.2	162,661	12.0
Written off	102,283	8.0	92,930	7.0	88,506	6.5
Total cases which did not proceed	255,557	20.1	254,391	19.2	251,167	18.5
Cases proceeding
Bind over	20,016	1.6	22,747	1.7	24,914	1.8
Committal hearing	98,575	7.7	107,979	8.1	95,073	7.0
Trial or Guilty plea	900,215	70.6	942,665	71.0	987,943	72.7
Total cases proceeding	1,018.806	79.9	1,073,391	80.8	1,107,930	81.5

Notes:

1.The figures given in the draft reply represent cases handled by the 13 Areas of the CPS, but do not include the specialised cases handled by Central Casework.
2.Cases discontinued are inclusive of those in which the CPS withdrew proceedings at court as well as those discontinued by way of a s23 notice.
3.Discontinuance fell from 13.3 per cent. of completed cases in 1992 to 12.8 per cent. in 1993, and has remained almost unchanged at around 12 per cent. for each year since then.