Well done to @jerryhayes1 for making disclosure problems in criminal proceedings front page news. The issue is longstanding & pervasive. It is not limited to sex cases or crown court matters. Its effect is corrosive on the justice system. An example from the magistrates court:
The defendant was charged with battery. Allegation was: he went to a place of business & punched someone. He was then pushed out of the door by employees of the business. Once outside, he punched the complainant again and an altercation took place between him and the employees.
He called the police and alleged he'd been assaulted. He ended up being interviewed as a suspect, and maintained his account that he was the victim. He was charged and bailed to court, where he pleaded Not Guilty and a trial date was set.
The schedule of unused material revealed that the complainant and the other employees (some of whom were prosecution witnesses) had themselves been interviewed as suspects. The recordings of their interviews were marked "Clearly Not Disclosable."
This is a specific phrase. It means the prosecution lawyer had concluded these items contained nothing relevant based entirely on their descriptions in the schedule, which simply said "Police interview of [X]", with no details of what was said in the interviews.
I filed a Defence Statement requesting disclosure of the interviews. I got no reply, despite chasing, and the trial ended up being adjourned due to the lack of a response. I eventually got a reply saying the CPS had requested the disks from the police, but that was it.
When they still didn't turn up, I filed a section 8 application seeking an order compelling disclosure of the interviews. The application was granted. The interview recordings were eventually disclosed a week after the deadline stated in the court order.
I listened to all the recordings. In the interviews, the police officer referred repeatedly to 3 independent witnesses who described the complainant & the prosecution witnesses as the aggressors. No statements from these witnesses had been served.
Nor were they mentioned anywhere in the schedule of unused material. The officer in the case had suppressed their very existence.
The new trial date arrived. I raised this issue with the prosecutor, and it turned out the CPS had known about the witnesses all along.
The new trial date arrived. I raised this issue with the prosecutor, and it turned out the CPS had known about the witnesses all along.
They and the police officer had formed the view that because these witnesses had not seen what had occurred inside the place of business, their entire testimony was irrelevant and their existence did not need to be disclosed.
Their testimony was that they had seen a group of men pushing another man out of a doorway and then attacking him. So, unsurprisingly, I disagreed with that assessment. So did the court, which adjourned the trial again and ordered disclosure of the statements.
The deadline for disclosure passed. They were eventually disclosed over a month late. I spoke to the witnesses, who were independent, credible people of good character. They described the defendant as the victim of an assault by the prosecution witnesses.
They were also willing to come to court as witnesses for the defence. I conveyed this fact to the prosecution. Who subsequently dropped the case.
TL;DR version - police and CPS suppressed evidence of witnesses harmful to their case, stalled for months when rumbled, then threw in the towel when it became clear we weren't giving up.
