§ Mr. Frank FieldTo ask the Attorney-General if, pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Birkenhead on 26 April,Official Report, column 64 he will set out the criteria the Crown Prosecution Service uses in judging whether time occupied by earlier court proceedings has occasioned staleness of a significance sufficient for criminal proceedings not to be instituted.
§ The Attorney-GeneralEach case will be viewed in the light of its particular circumstances and of the considerations set out in paragraph 8, in particular, of the code for Crown prosecutors to which my previous answer referred.
The code for Crown prosecutors may be found in the annual report made by the Director of Public Prosecutions to the Attorney-General. Copies of the director's first report were placed in the Libraries of both Houses on 13 August 1987. This was announced on 21 October 1987, at column 743.