“The shoddy state of most Crown Prosecution Service case files is highlighted in a report today which finds most are incomplete and missing data such as whether a defendant is on bail, or the outcome of a hearing.”
The Times, 22nd May 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“As Sir Ken Macdonald announces that he is standing down in October, the search begins for his successor.”
The Times, 20th May 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“Speaking at the Institute of Legal Executives’ (ILEX) the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, announced that the Crown Prosecution Services’ Designated Case Workers will now be known as Associate Prosecutors – a name that they themselves helped to select.”
Press release (PDF)
Attorney General’s Office, 15th May 2008
Source: www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk
“The Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police will apologise in the High Court today for wrongly accusing a Channel 4 film of faking an exposé of Islamic extremism.”
The Times, 15th May 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“Justice and the public interest seem to come a poor second to targets that the Director of Public Prosecutions is insisting on.”
The Times, 22nd April 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“It is a classic case of poacher- turned-gamekeeper — or in the case of Sir Ken Macdonald, perhaps the other way round. The Director of Public Prosecutions has embarked on a programme of taking on Crown Court trials — the stomping ground of his profession, the Bar. Instead of paying millions a year to private practice barristers, he wants more CPS advocates to take their own cases to court.”
The Times,
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“Hundreds of state prosecutors could be free to become judges under top-level moves to end a ban on Crown Prosecution Service employees entering the judiciary, The Times has learnt. Baroness Scotland, QC, the Attorney-General, and Sir Ken Mac-donald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, are both strongly in favour of the changes, saying that it would make the judiciary more diverse by widening the pool of women and ethnic minority lawyers who could be judges.”
The Times, 7th April 2008
Source: www.timeonline.co.uk
“The national roll-out of two new initiatives – pre-trial interviews with witnesses and conditional cautions – has now been completed across England and Wales.”
Crown Prosecution Service, 1st April 2008
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
“Speech by Vera Baird, Solicitor General, for the CPS Racist and Religious Crimes Policy Refresh, at the Mermaid Conference and Event Centre, London 19 March 2008.”
Attorney General’s Office, 19th March 2008
Source: www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk
“More than 2,000 cases that should have gone to trial in the Crown Court were thrown out last year because they were not ready, a watchdog says today.”
The Times, 11th March 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“The government last night faced fresh embarrassment over lost personal data, after admitting that a disc containing the DNA details of thousands of suspected foreign criminals was mislaid for a year.”
The Guardian, 20th February 2008
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Plans are due to go ahead for thousands of trials a year to be prosecuted by non-lawyers, even though the paralegals themselves say that they are insufficiently trained, The Times has learnt.”
The Times, 19th February 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“This week plans come before the House of Lords to expand the powers of Crown Prosecution Service caseworkers to handle a wide range of magistrates’ courts cases. It may be logical to argue that deploying these so-called designated case workers or DCWs for minor cases will free more experienced and qualified lawyers for more serious work. Yet inherently it means that the quality of representation for the prosecution will decline – because we are prepared to pay only junior staff to handle cases in the lower courts.”
The Times, 19th February 2008
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
“CPS Direct, the Crown Prosecution Service department responsible for charging suspects out of hours, has initiated a Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel to improve the way in which it deals with hate crime.”
Crown Prosecution Service, 23rd January 2008
Source: www.cps.gov.uk
“The attorney general is likely to lose the right to play a part in prosecution decisions but keep the job of government legal adviser in a shakeup of the role to restore public confidence, the Guardian has learned. The change will form part of Gordon Brown’s new constitutional settlement, along with other measures to increase public accountability which opened for consultation last week, including a bigger role for MPs in deciding whether to wage war.”
The Guardian, 29th October 2007
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“Prosecution lawyers have been criticised for failing to inform crime victims when charges against a suspect are dropped or changed.”
BBC News, 26th September 2007
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Thousands of trials a year could be prosecuted by non-lawyers under plans for an extension of the powers of the Crown Prosecution Service’s lay staff.”
The Times, 16th July 2007
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
© Inner Temple Library 2025