CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE

HAMPSHIRE AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT ANNUAL REPORT 2001-02

Letter from the Chief Crown Prosecutor Roger K Daw

The Crown Court in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight sits at Winchester, Portsmouth, Southampton and Newport. Occasionally, cases that start in Hampshire are also heard at the Crown Court sitting in Bournemouth (Dorset) and in Salisbury (Wiltshire).

The magistrates’ courts that deal with nearly all our cases are at Aldershot, Alton, Andover, Basingstoke, Fareham, Lyndhurst (New Forest), Newport, Portsmouth and Southampton. Occasionally, cases are heard in the magistrates’ courts at Eastleigh and Havant.

Readers of last year’s Annual Report will recall that its themes were “change” and “progress”: the former because of the Area’s move into its Glidewell structures, and the latter because we continued to improve the quality of our work. This year’s themes have developed from these concepts and can be summed up by “consolidation” and “delivery”. In this, the third Annual Report for The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, we have developed these ideas further so that the community that we serve may read of the work that we have undertaken to help secure a safer environment in which we all may live peacefully and safely.

The success of this year has been the completion of the Area’s move into its Glidewell Units. In his report into The Crown Prosecution Service nationally in 1998, Sir Iain Glidewell recommended the creation of Criminal Justice Units and Trials Units to enable us better to focus on the delivery of high quality decisions in our casework, in a more effective working environment. The transition into our Glidewell Units was completed in the summer of 2001, with the result that, in the space of two years, we have moved the Area away from a three Branch structure into one which has four Criminal Justice Units, two Trials Units, a joint Criminal Justice and Trials Unit, and a Special Casework Unit.

After the inevitable disruption died down, we began to see quickly some of the benefits that Sir Iain had predicted would flow from this structural reorganisation: quicker and more direct lines of communication — particularly between the police and The Crown Prosecution Service; better concentration on Crown Court cases — an area that had long been inappropriately neglected; and more effective case progression — thereby leading to speedier justice.

The remainder of the year has been used to consolidate the substantial number of internal changes that implementing the Glidewell reforms necessarily caused. Change is disruptive, unnerving and time-consuming to implement. Often, the first and second casualties of change are people and performance. For the most part, both the team in CPS Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and the performance of the Area remained largely unscathed, and I shall return to the former in a moment.

As regards our performance, I am pleased to report that we have continued to build on the improvements that we delivered last year and on which we reported in our Annual Report 2000-2001. We suffered during the year from some interruption to our performance because of the structural changes, but in the second six months of this reporting year, there were clear indications that we were back on track towards delivering the high quality performance that the public has a right to demand.

Nationally, The Crown Prosecution Service this year published important guidance on prosecuting cases of domestic violence and we in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have responded positively to this renewed initiative by refocusing on the quality of service that we provide to victims of crime in these circumstances.

Beyond the immediate position of The Crown Prosecution Service, this has once again been a year of change for the criminal justice system at large. Sir Robin Auld published his long-awaited review of the criminal courts of England and Wales. The Government asked for comments on Sir Robin’s 328 recommendations and, at the time of writing, it is deciding how best to respond to the report: one way or the other, there will be further changes to the criminal justice system.

We have also continued to deal with cases in which issues are raised under the Human Rights Act 1998.

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to return to the subject of people, and, in particular, the team that forms The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. With additional funding for this year, we have been able to undertake a successful recruitment exercise that has led to additional staff at all levels being taken on in the Area. In turn, this has alleviated some of the pressure on our staff. That they have borne such pressure with fortitude and that they have continued to give of their best is an absolute tribute to their professionalism and dedication to duty.

The Glidewell restructuring programme also had an effect on the staff, with a substantial number having to move places of work. That process alone is unsettling but every member of the senior management team is very proud that all the staff continued to carry out their duties so well during this time. Our thanks go to them for their hard work during the year and, like them, we look forward to a period of further consolidation in the 12 months ahead.

Lastly, this report, once again, demonstrates our commitment to a locally accountable service for the people of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Our only purpose is to deliver the highest possible quality prosecution service, dedicated to the concepts of fairness, independence and impartiality. In this way, we may all have confidence in the criminal justice system and in its efforts to reduce crime, to reduce the fear of crime and to dispense justice fairly and efficiently. Through the delivery of the highest possible service locally, we continue to play our full part in making these ideals a reality.

Roger K Daw

Introduction

The combined counties of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight cover a total of over 1,600 square miles (over one million acres) and have a population in excess of 1,780,000. The major centres are Southampton and Portsmouth, with nearly 23 per cent of the population living within the boundaries of the two Unitary Authorities. Ninety per cent of Hampshire is agricultural. In addition, the counties are host to representatives of each of the three armed services, which deploy over 28,000 uniformed personnel locally.

Hampshire and the Isle of Wight attract a significant number of visitors each year, with 5.7 million people staying in the two counties and over 31 million people visiting for the day. With two major ferry ports in Hampshire, there are a further half a million foreign visitors each year.

The Isle of Wight is unique in being the only English county that does not have any fixed link between it and the mainland, the usual means of transport being passenger or vehicular ferry.

There are nine magistrates’ courts that normally deal with crime in the two counties (out of the 11 in total) and four Crown Court centres. There are approximately 845 magistrates in the two counties.

The Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service is responsible for making the decision whether to prosecute people who are charged by the police with a criminal offence in England and Wales. The Service is headed by David Calvert-Smith, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he is supported by Richard Foster, the newly appointed Chief Executive, who took over this post from Mark Addison during the reporting year.

In April 1999, the Service was re-organised into 42 geographical Areas, to meet the Government’s aim of developing a well co-ordinated criminal justice system, in which the local agencies operate within identical boundaries. As a result, CPS Hampshire and the Isle of Wight was created out of the former South East Area of the Service.

The CPS structure mirrors Hampshire Constabulary, the Probation Service and the Magistrates’ Courts Committee for the two counties. The Court Service, which is responsible for the administration of the Crown Court, is divided slightly differently, as is the organisation of the barristers on the Western Circuit who undertake the vast majority of The Crown Prosecution Service’s work in the Crown Court.

Once again, this year, we have benefited from the way each of our agencies has common boundaries. It enables us to focus on possibly unique issues that affect Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and allows us to consider local and customised solutions. Even in respect of those agencies and groups which do not have identical boundaries with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Crown Prosecution Service, good lines of effective communication have allowed us to identify the most sensible solution to any particular local issue.

The aims of The Crown Prosecution Service, both nationally and locally, for 2001-2002 have been twofold:

• to contribute to the reduction both of crime and the fear of crime; and
• to increase public confidence in the criminal justice system by fair and independent review of cases and by firm, fair and effective presentation at court.

These aims are in line with those of the other criminal justice agencies and they enable all of us to focus our resources and efforts on identical goals. This means that the agencies should find it easier to work together, to achieve similar results.

In support of these aims, we identified five objectives in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to pursue:

1. to deal with prosecution cases in a timely and efficient manner in partnership with other agencies;
2. to ensure that the charges proceeded with are appropriate to the evidence and to the seriousness of the offending by the consistent, fair and independent review of cases in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors;
3. to enable the courts to reach just decisions by fairly, thoroughly and firmly presenting prosecution cases, rigorously testing defence cases and scrupulously complying with our duties of disclosure;
4. to meet the needs of victims and witnesses in the criminal justice system, in co-operation with other criminal justice agencies; and
5. to ensure that The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight generates accurate and reliable information about the way in which it takes its casework decisions and that it produces accurate and reliable information about its performance.

The senior management team of the local Crown Prosecution Service monitors progress towards achieving these five objectives. We have built on the previous good work of 2000-2001 and have continued to implement a number of systems and measures that provide us with regular information about our performance, both at Unit level and as an Area.

The remainder of this report is divided into a number of sections in which we comment more fully on our performance and the business priorities for The Crown Prosecution Service in 2001/2002, so that you may see how well we are undertaking our work against these objectives. Statistical information concerning our targets that were set during the reporting year can be found towards the end of this report. There is also a section that sets out the volume and type of caseload that we have undertaken in the last 12 months. Information about our staffing levels and financial position can be found towards the back of this report

Information box: The decision to prosecute

The way in which we make the decision whether to prosecute is set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The Code is issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 10, Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, and it is regularly revised when the need arises. The Code is available to the public.

There are two fundamental tests:

• Is there enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against each defendant on each charge?
• If there is enough evidence, is a prosecution needed in the public interest?

A realistic prospect of conviction is an objective test and means that a jury or bench of magistrates, properly directed in accordance with the law, is more likely than not to convict the defendant of the charge alleged.

When deciding if there is enough evidence, we consider whether it can be used in court; whether the evidence is reliable; and any explanation that the defendant puts forward about what occurred.

In considering the public interest, we look at factors which are both for and against prosecution, such as:

• whether a weapon was used;
• whether the offence was committed against a person serving the public (such as a nurse);
• whether there has been a breach of trust;
• whether a prosecution may have a bad effect on the victim’s physical or mental health;
• whether the offence was committed as a result of a genuine mistake or misunderstanding.

If there is not enough evidence, the case must not go ahead, no matter how important or serious it may be.

The decision to prosecute is not an exact science. It relies upon experienced prosecutors weighing all the evidence — both for and against the defendant — and reaching a reasoned judgment about the likelihood of conviction in front of a jury or bench of magistrates.

This process can be particularly difficult when witnesses give conflicting accounts of what happened at the scene of the crime, or when there are no other witnesses other than the defendant and the victim.

R v Wharton, Farmer and Leach

Three Southampton men are now serving a total of more than 15 years imprisonment as a result of a successful prosecution for conspiracy to import Ecstasy tablets and amphetamine from the Netherlands.

The prosecution arose from an investigation conducted by the National Crime Squad and the Dutch police. In the course of the operation, a lawyer in our Special Casework Unit provided advice to the police about how undercover activity, such as covert recording and filming, might affect the admissibility in court of any evidence obtained. He also requested the co-operation of the Dutch, Belgian and French authorities in allowing police officers from this country to work with their colleagues abroad.

The operation ended when a hired van was stopped in the Netherlands. In the back of the van was a large wooden toolbox and, in a hidden compartment under the tools, there were 27,000 Ecstasy tablets and 24 kilograms of amphetamine, with a total street value of up to £205,000.

Two Englishmen were prosecuted in the Netherlands with their Dutch suppliers. We shared with the Dutch authorities the evidence that had been obtained in England and in the Netherlands. With the evidence of the covert observations, both here and abroad, and with the evidence from telephone calls intercepted in the Netherlands, there was enough evidence to prove the agreement to import controlled drugs and the defendants pleaded guilty.

This prosecution demonstrates how effectively we and the police can co-operate with colleagues in the various criminal justice agencies abroad to combat international crime.

“There was enough evidence to prove the agreement to import controlled drugs”

Our performance

During the reporting year, we concluded over 39,000 cases in the magistrates’ courts and over 3,600 cases in the Crown Court. These figures represent a downturn in our caseload from the previous year of approximately 9%. Part of the reason for the downturn is due to the clearance of a backlog of cases during the previous reporting year. This had the effect of increasing the number of cases that were concluded on our computer system in 2000-2001. Consequently, this year’s figures appear a little low but are more likely accurately to reflect the volume of work being undertaken in the Area.

With other performance data suggesting that we received from the police only a few more cases than we concluded, the Area appears to have reached a stable footing with regard to its caseload figures. This in turn suggests that our own records of the Area’s caseload are being kept up-todate and may therefore be regarded as accurate as far as volumes are concerned.

The whole of The CPS team is focused on delivering high quality decisions in every case and then progressing effectively those cases which are for prosecution through the courts. The targets on which we are required to report to CPS headquarters tend to focus on the speed and efficiency with which cases progress; as a management team in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, we have developed our own performance measurement systems that allow us also to consider the quality of the legal decisions that we are required to make in every case.

This mix of case progression and case quality data provides, we believe, an overall and balanced picture of the quality of our work.

Turning first to matters surrounding case progression, the picture is one of steady progress across many facets of our work. In particular, we have continued to build on last year’s improvement and, this year, we provided the defence with the appropriate papers within the time guidelines laid down in 79 per cent of cases, in comparison with 69 per cent in 2000-2001 and 36 per cent back in 1998-1999.

The speedier delivery of papers on which the prosecution intends to rely at court and which set out the case against the defendant means that the defence has more time to consider its own case and, where appropriate, plead guilty. Alternatively, in the Crown Court, it provides more time for the defence to advise the prosecution about its case so that the trial may be narrowed down to the issues in dispute between the two parties. This is essential if we are to make sure that the best use possible is made of valuable and expensive court time.

Perhaps inevitably in times of change and upheaval, our performance suffered during the early part of the reporting year because of the movement of staff and cases from the previous Branch structure into our new Glidewell structure. Many readers will appreciate the logistical issues behind moving thousands of case papers as well as office and computer machinery from one geographical site to another — literally overnight — while all the time doing everything possible not to disrupt the business of the courts.

For the most part, these substantial moves went well and almost seamlessly. However, we did note a slight dip in our performance during this period: there was some difficulty in finding every case file for court; in one or two cases, we did not respond as fully or as quickly as we should have done to judicial orders; and correspondence was not replied to as quickly as we would have liked.

However, by the end of the reporting period, it is clear that many of these issues have been resolved. Although there remain a small number of case files that we are unable to find for the next court appearance, the overall number throughout the Area has certainly fallen. The number of judicial directions missed is now measured in the “ones” and the “twos” per month. And all Units report that they are linking incoming correspondence with the relevant case within 48 hours of receipt.

Whilst there is clearly some way still to go in these areas of effective case progression, our ability to keep going during the transition into our Glidewell Units meant that the criminal justice system as a whole did not notice any long term negative impact. Indeed, one of the greatest compliments that we received as an Area was from a magistrate who had not even noticed that the team of lawyers and administrators who delivered the prosecution service in his court had moved premises and had embraced brand new working patterns while still taking high class casework decisions and appearing daily in his court as advocates.

As far as the quality of our casework decisions is concerned, we have made good progress. After last year’s inspection by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, we carefully monitored our Action Plan which was designed to address the Inspectorate’s recommendations and suggestions. This has included looking at our internal systems for measuring the quality of our casework decisions. The senior management team adopted a revised system of casework monitoring that now provides the Area with an overview about the key aspects of the decision-making process in a randomly selected number of cases from each Unit on a monthly basis.

That information is studied each month by our Area-wide Casework Committee to make sure that local issues within each Unit and any more substantial Area-wide issues are addressed, either with the individuals concerned or with the teams of lawyers, caseworkers and administrators throughout the Area.

This information — which is part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring that we deliver the highest possible quality casework — is an essential part of the assurance that we have to provide annually to the Director of Public Prosecutions, as Head of The Crown Prosecution Service. It is also an essential part of the assurance that the public in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have a right to expect. For example, our monitoring suggests that the correct decision was taken about the strength of the evidence in deciding whether to proceed against the defendant in 96.2% of cases — 457 out of 475. Equally, our monitoring suggests that the final charges that the defendant in the Crown Court faced properly reflected the gravity of his alleged offending in 99.5% of cases — 199 out of 200.

Unused material

One of the most complex areas of case preparation which combines both quality decision making and effective case progression concerns the delivery of what we call “unused material” to the defence. Inevitably in many cases, during the course of their enquiries, the police gather a vast amount of information, only some of which touches upon the question whether the suspect committed the offence with which he is charged. The remaining information is classified as “unused material” for the simple reason that the prosecution does not intend to use it at the trial of the defendant. Nevertheless, the prosecution is required to consider all such material and decide whether it should be supplied to the defence under the statutory regime laid down in the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996.

This requires our lawyers to consider the list of unused material provided by the police and, in many instances, to consider the material itself. This procedure can be lengthy and time-consuming; often, the volume of unused material is greater than the volume of evidence that the prosecution intends to rely on at court during the trial of the defendant.

The system of “disclosing” unused material is important and, in extreme cases, a failure to do so can delay the case and, in some instances, stop it from reaching trial at all. Therefore, scrupulous compliance with the disclosure regime is an important part of our work.

We monitor the Area’s performance in this regard and, in respect of primary disclosure (that is, the material about which the prosecution must notify the defence automatically) we served the relevant material in 91.6% of cases — 384 out of 419 randomly sampled.

Although there is clearly work still to do in this area, our figures are above the national average to date as reported by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and we have a solid base upon which to continue to improve our performance in this important area.

Advice cases

As the law grows increasingly more complex and as offenders find ever more complicated ways of committing crime, it is essential that The Crown Prosecution Service is available to provide the police with pre-charge advice. It is a waste of everyone’s time if the police charge an individual only for The CPS to drop the case because there is insufficient evidence.

During the reporting year, The CPS provided the police with advice in 842 cases, which is approximately 2.1% of our total caseload.

As part of our efforts constantly to improve the quality of our work, we monitor the quality of advice that we provide to the police.

In 2001-2002, we monitored 185 cases where we provided advice and found that the quality of advice was good in over 96%.

It is important that we deliver our advice on time as well. We try to provide advice with 14 days of receipt of the file and we succeeded against this target in 70.3% of cases.

We shall continue to work to improve on these figures.

In the light of Sir Robin Auld’s recent report, the provision of high quality and timely pre-charge advice is likely to become all the more important in the year ahead.

R v Davies and others

A gang of five family members deliberately targeted elderly and infirm victims, in several counties, offering to carry out roofing work. The victims were then asked to pay even larger sums for work that either did not need doing or was not done at all.

The defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted of offences involving losses of over £345,000 to the victims. The principal defendant was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment and confiscation orders of £78,500 were made against the family.

Cracked and ineffective trials

Cracked and ineffective trials — particularly in the Crown Court — are costly and wasteful of court time. Cases where the defendant eventually decides to plead guilty or where the prosecution is obliged to offer no evidence delay other cases that need to go to trial from entering the court lists. They also mean that the case is hanging over the defendant’s, the victim’s and the witnesses’ heads longer than it need do.

There are many reasons for cracked and ineffective trials, for example: the defendant may decide to plead guilty at the court door when he sees the prosecution’s witnesses ready to give evidence; witnesses may decide that they no longer wish to give evidence; witnesses sometimes move without leaving a forwarding contact address; and occasionally, fresh evidence comes to light that casts doubt upon the original decision to prosecute.

During the reporting year, we have tried hard to reduce the number of these cases in order to ensure that the court’s time is used most productively. We have reduced the number of cases in which we offer no evidence in the Crown Court; we have reduced the number of cases in which we accept the defendant’s plea to only some of the charges against him; and we have reduced the number of bind overs that we accept as a suitable disposal in the Crown Court.

Of the cases that had to be adjourned at the prosecution’s request (a total of 131 during the reporting year) 84 were because a witness was not able or willing to attend court to give evidence. This represents over 64% of such cases.

In the year ahead, we shall focus on these Crown Court cases to reduce their number still further so that the best possible use may be made of court time.

Dealing with young offenders

One of the Government’s key measures is centred on the length of time the criminal justice system takes to deal with persistent young offenders. A young offender is classified as “persistent” for these purposes if he or she has been convicted of a criminal offence on three occasions with the last conviction occurring within three years of the incident for which he or she is appearing in court. The Government’s target is for such offenders to be dealt with within 71 days of their arrest.

This is an extremely demanding target, especially when it includes youths who are dealt with in the Crown Court. Its delivery requires the combined efforts of all the criminal justice agencies.

It is important that we deal with young offenders quickly so that they come to appreciate the old adage that “crime does not pay”. The nearer in time any appropriate penalty is to the commission of the crime, the more likely it is that the young person will realise that it is not worth their while committing the offence in the first place. Last year, we reported one case in which a youth was arrested at 07:12 one morning for the aggravated taking of a motor vehicle and who was sentenced in court at 16:10 on the same day. This is good quality and swift justice in action.

In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, we have continued to make significant progress in pursuit of the Government’s target. In 1998, the average length of time to process persistent young offender cases was 135 days. By 2000, that period had fallen to 80 days. The latest figures available at the time of writing this report show that the average time for the 12 months ending 31 December 2001 in this Area was 66 days — well within the Government’s target. More encouraging still, for the quarter ending 31 December 2001, the figure fell to 56 days which suggests that, in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, we are continuing our excellent work in this important field.

We know that all the relevant agencies will deal with cases involving persistent young offenders as swiftly as possible in the coming year, commensurate always with the interests of justice, to make sure that we continue to deliver such an outstanding performance.

R v McFarlane

In August 1999, a dispute arose between two drivers about the use of one of them of a parking space. One of the drivers was a black man. The other driver used threatening, abusive and insulting words towards him, including insults that were racially abusive.

We prosecuted the driver for an offence of racially aggravated public disorder. The case was tried at Southampton Magistrates’ Court and the court found that the racially abusive words did not demonstrate hostility towards the victim based on his membership of a racial group, nor that the offences were motivated by such hostility. The court found the defendant not guilty.

We appealed against that decision on the basis that the court had not properly applied the law to the facts of the case. The Administrative Court allowed the appeal and directed the magistrates to convict. On the re-listing of the case, the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to a community rehabilitation order for 18 months and ordered to pay £150 in costs.

Our appeal overturned the decision to acquit the defendant and gave the higher court the opportunity to clarify the law relating to racially aggravated abuse.

Dealing with complaints

It is inevitable that in taking decisions in over 42,000 cases a year, there will be some decisions with which others do not agree, either because they consider that their side of the story has not been believed or for some other reason relating to the case’s progress through the courts. In keeping with our wish to be as open and as transparent as possible in explaining our decision-making process, we have a detailed complaints procedure to help those who wish to raise concerns about anything that we do.

During the year, we received 90 complaints, a reduction of 38% on the previous year’s figure. The vast majority were complaints about the process rather than about the decision itself. Whilst welcoming the reduction in overall numbers, the senior management team is equally concerned to make sure that those who are affected by our decisions feel able to voice their concerns. We do not regard complaints negatively; rather they provide an opportunity to explain more fully how we arrive at our decisions.

We dealt with 92% of the complaints within the timescales laid down by CPS headquarters. This marks a slight reduction in performance on the previous year. However, five of the seven complaints that were answered out of time were dealt with in the first half of the reporting year at a time when we were completing the move into our Glidewell structures. Without wishing to minimise the failure to deal with these complaints in a timely way, we believe that the upheaval in moving many of our staff and their cases to new premises was the primary cause for the delay rather than any systemic weakness in our approach to dealing with complaint letters. We expect to see an improved performance in the year ahead.

We have once again set out the complaints procedure towards the back of this Annual Report so that anyone who wishes to raise any issue about The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight may see how to do so.

In accordance with our obligations under the Victim’s Charter, we are able to report that we received two complaints in respect of failing to inform a victim about the delay in court; we also received one complaint about failing to introduce our representative to the victim at court.

During the year, we dealt with 62 cases that were classified as racially motivated offences. In the previous year, the figure was 78 cases. We continue to place great store in dealing with all offences that include an element of discrimination carefully and effectively. Discrimination of any kind has no place in the criminal law; neither does it have any place in the decision-making process. We are pleased to say that locally all our staff are very alert to the need to make sure that the courts are made fully aware of any evidence of discrimination and evidence of racial aggravation is quickly put before the magistrates or judge where the circumstances require it.

Our Glidewell Structure

The senior management team is delighted to report that The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has completed its transition into its Glidewell structure. After a planning and implementation phase — that included a substantial programme of building works — of less than two years, it is a huge achievement by all those involved.

Since the national restructuring of The Crown Prosecution Service in 1999, we have worked closely with Hampshire Constabulary to develop an approach that provides opportunities to reap as many as possible of the benefits that Sir Iain Glidewell envisaged would become available through the creation of collocated Criminal Justice Units; the establishment of Trials Units; and here in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight the recognition of the need for a Special Casework Unit.

R v A

In October 2001, a Basingstoke boy aged 15 who was a persistent offender was released on licence from a custodial sentence. Within a week, he had begun to commit offences by taking cars without the consent of their owners. He was arrested by the police on 3 January 2002. He had been a passenger in a Vauxhall Astra which had been stolen some days before and was involved in a pursuit with a police car. The offence was made more serious because of the extensive damage that the offenders caused to the car.

On 4 January, he was released on bail and only two days later he committed a series of burglaries of shops with a gang of other boys. They removed glass from the doors of shops to get in and then loaded up a stolen car with the stock. Two of the gang were finally arrested while committing another burglary, but the 15-year-old escaped.

On 13 January, he committed another shop burglary and stole more than £9,000 worth of DVDs and Playstation games. He was finally arrested, charged and remanded into Local Authority accommodation.

On 6 March 2002, he was sentenced to an 18-month Detention and Training order and disqualified from driving for 12 months.

R v O’Donoghue

In the evening of 30 June 2001, personnel at a Ladbrokes Betting Office were preparing to close the shop. The female deputy manager had earlier been aware of a male who had entered the shop, stayed for about 10 minutes without placing a bet and who had then left.

At 21:06, the same man entered the shop, walked directly to the back of the shop and placed his hands on the counter and vaulted over it to the area where the manager was standing. He had a 9” knife in his right hand. He demanded money. He was given notes and some coin.

The man jumped back over the counter and ran out of the door. He had taken more than £1,000.

The manager called the police and some three days later the defendant was arrested. He admitted this robbery and other offences.

He appeared in Newport Magistrates’ Court on 4 July where he was sent to the Crown Court, appearing there on 11 July.

On 13 July, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

There were 14 days between crime and punishment.

As ever, careful planning and attention to detail have been the key factors in the success that we have enjoyed in delivering the Glidewell vision in such a short space of time. Bearing in mind the size of this Area, we believe that all members of The CPS — together with their colleagues in Hampshire Constabulary — deserve the highest praise. Without their support, involvement and dedication, we would not have been able to move so smoothly into our new working arrangements while continuing to review and prosecute cases throughout all the courts in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

In many other businesses outside the public service, the natural inclination would have been to suspend business at the height of the change process and take things “one stage at a time” — not for The Crown Prosecution Service, because of its pivotal role in binding together the work of the police with the role of the courts. The motto of “business as usual” was adhered to fully during our transition, and with minimal disruption on the surface. As a result, we were among the first Crown Prosecution Service Areas to deliver the Glidewell structure throughout our entire borders.

Building on the lessons that we learned from our first collocated site situated within the grounds of the police station at Newport, Isle of Wight, we adopted a rolling programme of change that has led to the creation of collocated Criminal Justice Units in Aldershot, Basingstoke, Portswood (Southampton) and Portsmouth (Central) police stations.

In addition, we established Trials Units in Portsmouth and in Eastleigh, with a Special Casework Unit being created in Eastleigh as well. All these Units are situated on CPS estate.

Following a comprehensive preference exercise involving all staff, we were able to assign all members of The Crown Prosecution Service to Units which were broadly in line with where they wished to work. We recognised the concern and disturbance caused to staff by asking them to adopt different working patterns. Their active participation in our transition programme is all the more worthy of praise when one bears in mind that many were also asked to move geographical location.

The former Basingstoke team deserves a special mention. For them, the Area’s move into its Glidewell structures meant the loss of their Branch in its entirety. At other sites, the old Branch buildings became the home for the Trials Units and the Special Casework Unit and, as a result, the move from the Branch structure seemed less of a break with the “old”. However, in Basingstoke, the entire staff moved either to Eastleigh or to Aldershot or to the recently reopened police station in the town.

One way or the other, The Crown Prosecution Service vacated the offices that used to house Basingstoke Branch and the team there felt extremely concerned by the abolition of their Branch under the Glidewell proposals. The senior management team is very grateful to them for the way in which they approached this amount of change in such a positive way.

The final set of moves from the old to the new was completed by 31 July 2001. Since then, all the Units have settled down in their new office environment and all have adapted well to their new roles.

Of course, the co-operation of the police has been critical to the success we have enjoyed in moving from CPS Branches to Glidewell Units. As we reported last year, the Constabulary has been fully involved in the implementation of the Glidewell reforms and have enthusiastically supported our change programme.

However, the Glidewell vision was clear: introducing new structures and new working environments was only a step towards delivering improved performance in respect of the cases with which we deal and with regard to the courts that we serve. The rationale for creating collocated Criminal Justice Units and Trials Units was to allow greater dedicated attention to be paid to our casework, aided in the Criminal Justice Units, by joint working between the police and The Crown Prosecution Service.

In merging their working practices and recognising the concept of “joint” administration, the Criminal Justice Units were designed to deliver the most effective means of preparing cases.

Sir Iain Glidewell saw joint and collocated Criminal Justice Units as being the way in which the police and The Crown Prosecution Service might eliminate duplication, wherever possible; improve efficiency through the co-ordination of working practices; improve working relationships; reduce delay; and improve the service delivered to victims and witnesses.

All these aims are, in our view, entirely right and achievable but they require further time to be fully realised. Having completed the physical creation of the Units that inspired Sir Iain’s recommendations, we have begun to meld the working practices of our two very distinct organisations at all of our sites. Some are able to move more quickly in this area than others, but all staff in the joint and collocated Units are determined to build on the tremendous start that has been made and to work hard at bringing together the two systems of casework administration that have been in existence since the establishment of The Crown Prosecution Service back in 1986.

Both the senior officers in the Constabulary and The CPS senior management team are aware of the further work that we need to undertake in order to make the idea of proper joint working a reality: we have made significant progress already but there is still much to be done to ensure that all our joint and collocated Units work in the most effective way possible to deliver the Glidewell benefits.

This is one of our major challenges for the year ahead and we look forward to it.

As ever, there remains an important point to emphasise, just as we did in last year’s report: independence.

Last year, we commented on and welcomed the extent to which the criminal justice agencies were moving more closely together in terms of their working relationships. We made the point that each agency is, to some extent, dependent on the work and performance of their partner agencies, and that certainly the success of the criminal justice system as a whole is dependent on the successful working of each of its constituent agencies.

In completing our transition into joint and collocated Criminal Justice Units, the concept of inter-agency working has been taken to a different level, especially given that all these Units are housed in accommodation provided by the Constabulary. However, it is as a direct consequence of this that the distinction between case progression and casework decisions needs to be stated, iterated and then re-iterated as frequently as possible.

All that the police and The Crown Prosecution Service have achieved in terms of joint working relates to the way in which cases may be progressed more efficiently. This is entirely separate from the legal decisions taken in respect of those cases. In simple terms, the Glidewell vision of joint working that we have adopted is about ensuring that all the relevant material on which a high quality casework decision needs to be taken is available at the earliest opportunity; it is not about compromising the principles on which those casework decisions are then taken, nor is it about allowing another agency to have an improper influence over the decision-making process.

The decision whether to prosecute cases in court rests solely with The Crown Prosecution Service. It is our duty to take that decision in a fair, independent and objective way.

Independent decision making remains the cornerstone of our work; issues surrounding case progression and the development of systems and procedures to ensure that cases move through the system at their appropriate speed is the area in which all the agencies need to and do work together.

R v Robustelli and others

Police in Portsmouth arrested three suspects after they had sold boxes which they claimed contained computers to two members of the public.

On opening the boxes, the purchasers discovered that they had in fact paid a large sum of money for a box that contained a bag of flour.

The three suspects were arrested on 28 November 2001 and appeared in Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court on 1 December under the fast-track arrangements. They were charged with two counts of obtaining property by deception.

Both defendants pleaded guilty and they were conditionally discharged for three years.

A camera, a car stereo and over £1,300 were ordered to be forfeited by the court.

Links with other agencies

Of course, our approach to joint working is not confined to the Constabulary. All the criminal justice agencies in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight have a well-established history of working together. We have long recognised the benefits that may be derived from the mutual exchange of information and the advantages to be obtained from problem sharing.

Within the two counties, The Crown Prosecution Service plays an active role in the Area Criminal Justice Strategy Committee, chaired by a member of the judiciary; the Chief Officers Group which brings together the senior officers of the criminal justice agencies and senior representatives of the local authorities; the local Trials Issues Group; and a body of our own creation, namely an Area-wide Performance Management Board.

It is this Board which considers the performance of the criminal justice system generally in such key areas as the volume of cracked and ineffective trials and the extent to which we are meeting the Government’s target with regard to persistent young offenders. The Performance Management Board has also, over the years, overseen the implementation of a number of key initiatives, such as the introduction of the Narey fast-track procedures and the establishment of systems to support the sending of indictable only offences from the magistrates’ courts to the Crown Court after only one or two appearances.

The success of this Board and of all the other inter-agency working bodies is again a tribute to the extent to which Chief Officers and others associated with the criminal justice system recognise the need for a co-ordinated approach to the many initiatives that are introduced on an almost annual basis.

Communicating with victims and witnesses

Without doubt, one of the major developments of the year has been the roll-out of The Crown Prosecution Service’s programme of direct communication with victims in those cases where the charge is stopped or substantially amended.

Locally, we benefited from participating in a pilot study of this initiative in 2000-2001 and we learnt much through this experience. As a result, we have been able to roll-out the extension of the programme throughout the whole Area during this reporting year.

In essence, the scheme means that in cases where the reviewing prosecutor substantially amends the charges that are originally preferred by the police, a letter is written to the victim by The Crown Prosecution Service setting out the reasons why the charges have been changed. In the most serious categories of case, the victim is also offered the opportunity to meet the prosecutor so that the decision can be explained more fully, face to face.

So far, the results of this change in our approach to victims of crime are encouraging. We have put in place quality checks regarding the letters that are written and we have ensured that members of our legal team, who write such letters and who might hold face to face meetings, are properly trained.

We recognise the issues surrounding the delivery of news to a victim who may feel “let down” by the system, especially after the police have initially informed them that the defendant will face more serious charges. But this is the reality of the way in which the prosecution process is constructed.

Notwithstanding all the good work that the police undertake, they are not necessarily trained lawyers and there are increasingly more complex crimes and more complex rules of evidence that need to be followed before a decision about whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute can be made. This is the role of The Crown Prosecution Service and is a very good example of the independence that our legal team bring to the decisionmaking process to which we referred earlier in this report. It is inevitable that, on occasion, we disagree with the police’s assessment of the strength of the evidence. If we did not do so, there is arguably little point in having an independent prosecuting authority.

It is in these cases where we do substantially amend the original police decision regarding the charges that we now undertake the duty of informing the victim.

Whilst some victims may not agree with the decisions that we take, we believe that we have committed ourselves down an important road in agreeing to explain our reasoning. It should help to assuage any feeling that victims may have that they are irrelevant to the criminal justice process: nothing could be further from the truth.

Our system of criminal justice overwhelmingly relies on the victim giving evidence and it is essential that they feel part of the process. Explaining often difficult decisions provides an important link between the victim and The Crown Prosecution Service and we look forward to this initiative developing in the year ahead.

In the 12 months to 31 March 2001, the legal teams wrote a total of approximately 220 letters and saw two victims in person.

Equality and Diversity

The Area’s local Equality and Diversity Committee has continued to flourish during the reporting year. The Committee — chaired by one of the Area’s Designated Caseworkers — oversees the way in which the Area carries out its Equality and Diversity Action Plan, and it meets regularly to consider issues that the Department is addressing nationally.

Equality in the workplace is a vital first step to ensuring that prosecution decisions are taken in a fair, independent and objective way. Without having the confidence that the workplace is fair and free from discrimination and that our staff are treated with respect and dignity, it is impossible to have confidence that our casework decisions are not also tainted.

In order to gauge the views of our staff on this important issue, we organised a local survey that guaranteed anonymity for any individual who responded. Approximately 155 questionnaires were sent out and 23 were returned. Of those 23, 13 members of staff wished to raise concerns about equality and fair treatment in the workplace and about the way in which the offices worked.

As a management team, we have met to discuss how to take these results forward and a series of workshops has been arranged where managers may discuss with trainers and facilitators how we might improve our approach to management and our working environment. The first of these has already been held and there was a very real willingness on the part of all managers in the Area to embrace the findings of our local survey and to identify ways of addressing the concerns that have been raised.

Of course, the bigger picture for The Crown Prosecution Service as a whole is the report that was published in July 2001 about race discrimination in The CPS by Sylvia Denman. In a hard-hitting report, the Department was left in no doubt about the steps that it needed to take in order to lift the shadow of inequality on the grounds of race from within its midst.

R v Ransom

In January 2001, the police were called to help with some cattle which had escaped into a nearby cemetery because of inadequate fencing which had been designed to keep in the cattle.

In February 2001, Hampshire County Council Trading Standards Department asked the police for help because there was to be a veterinary inspection of the farmer’s herd of cattle and there was concern about how the farmer might react if the vet decided that some animals needed to be put down. The vet decided that two animals had to be destroyed immediately. Threats were made to the police by the farmer. A shotgun was found lying under some clothing. As a result, the farmer’s gun licence was revoked.

On 13 April 2001, the police were again called by Trading Standards, whose vets were on the site. This time, the farmer was more aggressive. All the officers present were in danger, not only from the farmer but also from the conditions on the farm.

A number of animals had to be put down on this visit and the farmer was summonsed for several offences of animal cruelty, failing to maintain proper records, not disposing of animal carcases, allowing animals to stray, firearms offences and affray.

He was sentenced to a total of six months imprisonment, suspended for two years.

This was the first case in Hampshire where The CPS and the Trading Standards Department worked closely together and both agreed that it had been a successful partnership

R v Bignell

After a successful undercover operation, the police arrested 24 people who were suspected of trading in heroin in Winchester town centre. The main evidence against the accused was captured on CCTV, by audio recording and by covert surveillance.

All 24 suspects were charged and they faced 64 offences in total. Due to the serious nature of the offences, the defendants were sent to the Crown Court for trial under the procedures set out in section 51 Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which is designed to speed cases through the magistrates’ courts.

Most defendants entered guilty pleas to a variety of offences; those who did not were convicted after trial. Sixteen defendants received prison sentences, totalling 60 years, of between 18 months and six years imprisonment.

The judge commended the overall time scale within which this case was processed: eight months from date of arrest to the date the last defendant was sentenced.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE UNITS

ALDERSHOT

Unit Head	James Burnham
Business Manager	Diane Utting
Contact telephone number	01256 405380

The Aldershot CJU deals with cases that are to be heard in the Aldershot and Alton Magistrates’ Courts. During 2001-2002, they dealt with 5,416 cases, of which 207 were committed to be heard in the Crown Court. The Unit has the equivalent of 4.6 lawyers; 0.4 of a Designated Caseworker; and 5.2 CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 214 trials in their local magistrates’ courts.

BASINGSTOKE

Unit Head	James Burnham
Business Manager	Nick Lock
Contact telephone number	01256 405390

The Basingstoke CJU deals with cases that are to be heard in the Andover and Basingstoke Magistrates’ Courts. During 2001-2002, they dealt with 5,915 cases, of which 255 were committed to be heard in the Crown Court. The Unit has the equivalent of 4.4 lawyers; 0.4 of a Designated Caseworker; and five CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 298 trials in their local magistrates’ courts.

SOUTHAMPTON

Unit Head	Melanie Pliskin
Business Manager	Helen Jones
Contact telephone number	023 8067 4484

The Southampton CJU deals with cases that are to be heard in the Southampton and Lyndhurst (New Forest) Magistrates’ Courts. During 2001-2002, they dealt with 10,533 cases, of which 722 were committed to be heard in the Crown Court. The Unit has the equivalent of 10.5 lawyers; two Designated Caseworkers; and 7.6 CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 588 trials in their local magistrates’ courts.

PORTSMOUTH

Unit Head	James Kellam
Business Manager	Jon Shepherd
Contact telephone number	023 9289 1701

The Portsmouth CJU deals with cases that are to be heard in the Portsmouth and Fareham Magistrates’ Courts. During 2001- 2002, they dealt with 12,787 cases, of which 893 were committed to be heard in the Crown Court. The Unit has the equivalent of 11.8 lawyers; two Designated Caseworkers; and 7.4 CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 633 trials in their local magistrates’ courts.

TRIALS UNITS

PORTSMOUTH

Unit Head	David Connor
Business Manager	Adaora Ofoegbu
Contact telephone number	023 9285 6210

SOUTHAMPTON/WINCHESTER

Unit Head	David Renwick
Business Manager	Melanie Springer
Contact telephone number	023 8067 3800

The combined Southampton/Winchester TU deals with cases that are to be heard in the Crown Court sitting at Southampton and Winchester. During 2001-2002, they dealt with 2,105 cases. The Unit has the equivalent of 7.8 lawyers; 16.7 caseworkers; and 14.8 CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 869 cases that were listed for trial during the year.

COMBINED CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND TRIALS UNIT

NEWPORT

Unit Head	Cilla Worsfold
Business Manager	Kate Sussex
Contact telephone number	01983 538666

The combined CJU/TU deals with cases that are to be heard in Newport Magistrates’ Court and in the Crown Court sitting at Newport. During 2001-2002, they dealt with 3,220 magistrates’ courts cases — of which 194 were committed to the Crown Court — and 269 Crown Court cases. The Unit has the equivalent of 3.4 lawyers; one caseworker; and 4.6 CPS administrative staff. The Unit dealt with 161 magistrates’ courts trials and 123 cases that were listed for trial in the Crown Court.

SPECIAL CASEWORK UNIT

Unit Head	Alastair Nisbet
Business Manager	Christine Burke
Contact telephone number	023 8067 3800

This new Unit deals with the most complex cases on behalf of the Area as a whole. During the year, it dealt with six cases that were concluded and had a further 15 cases which were progressing towards trial. A second lawyer is due to join the Unit early in the new reporting year. There is one administrator supporting the Unit at the moment.

In order to re-inforce the message of the Denman report, my regular column in our in-house newsletter was devoted to the issue of discrimination and we have reproduced it here as a sign of our commitment to tackling the difficult and often sensitive issues that Sylvia Denman has asked us to address.

Outreach

The concepts of equality and diversity are, of course, not isolated to internal working arrangements and behaviours within The Crown Prosecution Service. To that end, we have devised an extensive programme of community engagement, the aim of which is to ensure that our role is understood by the community that we serve. During the year, we have taken every opportunity to engage with the local community by making links with local schools and colleges; by participating in local community safety groups; by speaking to local groups about our work. We remain committed to working with and for the community we represent and to stand accountable to them for our performance.

Our Outreach programme goes beyond issues associated with minority communities. We also recognise that groups of individuals who are not normally seen as being part of a minority group also need to have confidence in us. We have in mind here particularly victims of domestic violence and people with learning disabilities.

In all, we have constructed an Outreach programme that comprises five pillars:

• race;
• domestic violence;
• physical disability;
• homophobia; and
• learning disability.

In respect of each of these pillars, we have started to engage with community representatives or those who seek to represent members within these groupings in order to create a dialogue. We in The Crown Prosecution Service need to understand more fully the issues that affect individuals who belong to any one of these groups. In turn, we have been encouraged that people who are affected by taunts of discrimination or who have suffered domestic violence or a homophobic attack are keen to learn more about how the criminal justice system works and how, in particular, The Crown Prosecution Service goes about its business.

By breaking down the barriers of ignorance, we hope to build up a relationship of trust so that we can more properly understand the impact of a crime, for example, on a person who is physically disabled. Conversely, someone who lives with a learning disability who comes to know more about The Crown Prosecution Service may start to have confidence in knowing that his or her case has been properly considered — irrespective of the result.

To this end, we maintain an Outreach register in which we log all our community contacts; we participate fully in a Sub-Group established by the Chief Officers’ Group that is looking at ways of engaging with racial minority communities; we have welcomed during the year speakers from Voice UK which is an organisation dedicated to supporting children with learning disabilities and we are looking forward to another Voice UK speaker joining us at a management training session in April; the Service is represented on the Hidden Targets Group which has been established in Southampton to take forward the recommendations of a report bearing the same name which conducted research into homophobia in the city; and we are actively preparing for the introduction of those measures designed to protect vulnerable witnesses that are due to come into effect in the early part of the next reporting year.

However, after years of concern that these groups within our community have not had the attention or support that they deserve from the criminal justice system, we recognise that it takes more than fine words to start to develop the confidence that is required; members of communities want to see action.

Accordingly, as an Area, we have appointed in each of our Criminal Justice and Trials Units a series of co-ordinators who have responsibility in their Unit for conducting or providing advice so that others may conduct the review process and/or undertake advocacy, armed with all the appropriate information.

We have worked in conjunction with the Constabulary to devise special pro-forma to ensure that all the vital background information, which often can explain the history behind an offence, is sent to the reviewing lawyer with the file of evidence. In this way, the reviewing lawyer should be better able to set the alleged offence in context and be in a position better to understand the views of the victim.

So far, we have appointed co-ordinators for racial crimes; domestic violence; homophobic crimes; and cases involving children as witnesses. We are still considering how best to respond to the demands that will be placed on us in respect of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses during the course of the next reporting year.

These are early days in respect of this initiative. We believe that we have devised systems to ensure that we in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight take a consistent approach throughout the two counties to crimes which contain one or more of these elements. We will monitor carefully to see how successful our pro-forma are in supplying us with the information that we need in order to make the best possible casework decisions. We are confident that our approach will begin to show the community that we intend to take their allegations of crime extremely seriously and that their views are genuinely sought.

We need to bear in mind the bravery that many victims show — particularly of racial crimes, domestic violence and homophobic crimes — in coming forward to make a complaint in the first place. One only has to recall that, on average, a victim of domestic violence suffers 34 assaults before coming forward to report their attacker to the police to realise how little crime of this nature ever sees the light of day. The same is true in the case of other limbs of our Outreach programme.

As a team, we are determined that The Crown Prosecution Service will match the bravery of those who have suffered in this way by robust decision making, in accordance with our statutory duty, of the highest quality, so that those who can summon up the courage to report crimes to the police have their courage rewarded by seeing their attackers prosecuted for serious criminal offences.

Information Box : Fairness

Fairness is at the heart of The Crown Prosecution Service's duty to review and, where appropriate, to prosecute cases. The idea, therefore, that the Service a whole may not live up to that standard comes as a sharp blow to our own perceptions of the way in which we approach our jobs. But as part of a unified Service, we must recognise the force of the arguments set out in the Denman and the CRE reports that clearly report on examples on unacceptable behaviour within the Service.

It is simply not acceptable to say: Well, it doesn't happen down here, so why should we take any notice? John Donne wrote that 'No man is an island' and we are all diminished by the actions of any single member of our organisation who does not live up to the required standard. We all have a responsibility permanently to be on our guard to ensure that we maintain the justifiably high standards that we have set for ourselves.

Prejudice is insidious; it comes in all shapes and sizes and it is often not apparent in the individual actions of any one person or organisation. It is frequently the
cumulative effect of a person's behaviour that betrays discrimination or prejudice and this can be tough to see.

But this is not just about racial prejudice; there are many types of prejudice. Some are based on an obvious, visual characteristic of the group being victimised: colour; gender; physical appearance. Others are based on characteristics that are not quite so obvious: sexual orientation; accent; mental ability.

What we all have to accept is that every person, white, black, female, male, partially sighted, fully sighted, heterosexual, homosexual, Scot or English, has the right to be treated fairly. Indeed, we have a duty to do so. But we need to do more than this; we need to celebrate the differences that stop us all being the same. Let us celebrate the fact that we come together as a group from many backgrounds with different approaches to the way we see things; let us use the strength of difference to ensure that we see things from as many different points of view as possible.

To my mind, that is the distinction between, equality, and diversity; equality is about making sure that people are treated fairly and that everyone has an equal opportunity to develop and progress within the Service and within the workplace. Diversity is about positively celebrating the fact that we are all different and that, through that difference, we can become stronger and more aware that everyone individually does not have the stranglehold on being right. After all, would we really want to be surrounded by people who always agreed with everything that we said? It would become very boring eventually.

Fairness and objectivity are at the heart of the prosecution process; without these qualities, we let the communities that we serve down and, as importantly, we let ourselves down.

PROSECUTING CASES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

“There was a time when society considered violence within the home to be a private matter, of little concern to the courts — criminal or civil. The expression ‘rule of thumb’ was derived from the practice of a man being allowed to beat his wife with a stick provided it was no thicker than his thumb. The classic example of a leading question in law schools was ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’.

“Domestic violence accounts for a quarter of reported violent crime. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men on women. Every week there are two domestic homicides.

“Just as there has been a sea change in how society now views those who drink and drive, there needs to be a similar sea change in how society views those who are violent or abusive within their personal relationships.”

With these words, the Director of Public Prosecutions launched The Crown Prosecution Service’s revised public policy statement on prosecuting cases of domestic violence. The bald facts are horrifying: on average, a woman is the victim of domestic violence 34 times before she reports the matter to the police. Cases of domestic violence are often not pursued through the courts because the victim decides before trial that they no longer wish to give evidence against their partner or former partner — not because the crime did not happen, but because of a number of other reasons they no longer want to assist the prosecution.

The Service’s revised guidance sets out clearly the considerations that we bear in mind when deciding how best to proceed with domestic violence cases once the police charge the defendant. It provides a definition of such crimes that reads as follows.

“Any criminal offence arising out of physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or financial abuse by one person against a current or former partner in a close relationship, or against a current or former family member.”

The definition is deliberately wide to reflect the varying circumstances in which domestic abuse takes place.

Naturally, the tests set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors continue to apply, but the decisionmaking process is further supported by detailed background information which should be provided to us by the police. This enables us to understand more fully the context in which the crime took place.

The guidance recognises the difficulty and upset that can occasionally be caused by the need for the abused partner to give evidence and categorically states that we will not automatically assume that calling the victim is the only way to prove the case.

In clear terms, the guidance sets out what steps should be followed when a victim decides that they do not want to give evidence and identifies other ways in which the case might still go to court.

In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, we have been active in raising the awareness of all Crown Prosecution Service members regarding domestic violence. In the autumn, we held a joint seminar with the Constabulary to discuss the issues and to identify how best we can ensure that we have all the required information on which to base our decision.

We have appointed in each of our Criminal Justice and Trials Units an experienced prosecutor to act as a co-ordinator to provide help and advice to all members of the legal team who deal with domestic violence cases. In due course, the co-ordinators will also act as a source of best practice to make sure that the legal teams of which they are a part are kept fully informed of new developments in terms of the law and practice.

Through these means, we hope to provide the best possible service to those who suffer violence or other forms of abuse at the hands of their partners former partners. The history of the criminal justice system in this area is woeful: we are determined to follow the Director’s guidance fully and to begin to win back the trust of those who have been let down in the past.

We hope that those who suffer from domestic violence will have the courage now to come forward and help us send out a clear message: domestic violence is not acceptable in any shape or form. It is a crime. And, in accordance with our statutory duties, we will deal with it fairly but firmly.

Training

Once again, the Area Training Committee and all our Area trainers have enjoyed another busy year. We have ensured that local training has supported important national initiatives so that all members of staff obtain the maximum benefit. This work has embraced such diverse topics as a new Information Technology system, known as Connect 42, and the introduction of a new system for the payment of counsel fees. The former has provided every member of staff with access to a computer system but has generated the need for basic IT literacy and computer skills; the latter has meant that all caseworkers have had to learn a new way of processing often substantial amounts of money.

We have also needed to address the fact that in the light of our Glidewell restructuring there have been members of staff who have had to learn new skills to undertake their work in the most effective way possible and there have been others who have needed assistance in brushing up on skills that they last used many years ago.

For all these staff, we have sought to provide adequate training (or refresher training) to enable them fully to carry out their duties.

Our thanks, once again, go to the Training Committee for all their hard work in keeping abreast of all the initiatives that require a training input. We are certain that the year to come will be even busier!

Finance

This year, the Area benefited from a substantial increase in its financial resources. Our budget rose by 17.7% to £5,692,740. We have spent much of our additional allocation on recruiting more staff and we are delighted to welcome every new member of the team who has joined us since April 2001. Inevitably, we have also lost some of our more established members and we all wish them good luck as they pursue their new career paths.

The additional increase in staff numbers has begun to show to our partners the advantages of having a better resourced Crown Prosecution Service and we have noticed ourselves the extent to which we can improve the quality of our service with more staff.

Nevertheless, we have sought to manage our budget sensibly as befits a publicly accountable body. Our expenditure during the year amounted to £5,690,069. This represents 99.95% of our budget.

R v Marsh

Michael Marsh was a lorry driver. He drove a lorry with a crane mounted on the top. When the crane was in use, the lorry was supported by girder-like stabilising arms, each with an adjustable vertical leg.

When the arms were not in use, they were manually slid back into the sub-frame of the lorry and should have been secured by two devices. The first was a spring-loaded latch, and the second was a bolt — manually operated by a lever. Marsh was fully trained in the operation of these safety devices.

On a morning in May, Marsh had been using the crane. The nearside stabilising arm was not held in place by either stabilising mechanism, and as he drove around a gentle bend in Stubbington, the arm slid out of its housing, became fully extended, and swept along the pavement.

The arm struck two young boys; a 13-year-old was killed and a 12-year-old was gravely injured. The Crown Prosecution Service was asked to advise whether a prosecution was possible. The reviewing lawyer examined the lorry and operated the arm and the locking device. He was satisfied that the defendant’s claim that the locking devices operated automatically when the arm was pushed in was not correct.

The reviewing lawyer advised that Marsh should be charged with causing death by dangerous driving on the basis that he drove the lorry in a condition he knew or ought to have known was dangerous. Marsh pleaded not guilty but was convicted after his trial. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment which was later reduced on appeal.

Marsh’s case was later used as a precedent in a subsequent case involving identical circumstances when a cyclist was injured. In that case too, the driver was charged with dangerous driving and was convicted after a trial.

Personnel

As at 31 March 2002, The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight employed a total of 183 staff at seven geographical sites in nine different working Units. We have set out in the table below the distribution of staff at each of those Units by level.

	lawyers
Area Secretariat	1
Aldershot CJU	5
Basingstoke CJU	7
Southampton CJU	13
Portsmouth CJU	14
Portsmouth TU	7
Southampton/Winchester TU	9
Newport joint CJU/TU	5
Special Casework Unit	1
TOTAL	62

	Caseworks
Area Secretariat	6
Aldershot CJU	1
Basingstoke CJU	2
Southampton CJU	3
Portsmouth CJU	3
Portsmouth TU	16
Southampton/Winchester TU	24
Newport joint CJU/TU	2
Special Casework Unit	1
TOTAL	58

	Administratiors
Area Secretariat	5
Aldershot CJU	4
Basingstoke CJU	5
Southampton CJU	7
Portsmouth CJU	7
Portsmouth TU	13
Southampton/Winchester TU	16
Newport joint CJU/TU	5
Special Casework Unit	1
TOTAL	63

Taking into account part-time working arrangements, The Crown Prosecution Service in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has the following equivalent resources.

Lawyers	55.5
Caseworkers	53.25
Administrators	47.1
TOTAL	155.85

Compared with a similar table last year, this represents an overall increase in staffing levels of 21%. We hope that we will be able to maintain this position — if not improve on it still further — during the reporting year ahead and in the light of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review covering the period 2003-2006, the results of which will be known over the summer. Only by securing adequate resources for the years ahead will we be able to continue to consolidate still further on the substantial amount of good work that we have undertaken during this reporting year.

R v Grimson

Allan Grimson is a double murderer. He was a Petty Officer in the Navy. In 1997, he invited one of his students back to his flat. He made homosexual advances, and when they were rejected, he battered the victim with a baseball bat and cut his throat. He disposed of the body in undergrowth beside a country road in Hampshire, where for a time it remained undiscovered.

Grimson repeated his grim deed in December 1998. He befriended a young barman and invited him back to his flat — ostensibly for a homosexual liaison — but intending to kill him. He again battered his victim and then cut his throat. As before, he disposed of the body by a country road. Both victims were reported as “missing”.

After a prolonged and extensive enquiry, the police established that Grimson had been seen in the company of his first victim on the last night that he was seen alive. Following his arrest, he made a detailed and chillingly detached confession to the first murder. At the end of that interview, he was asked if there was anything further that he wanted to add. It was then that Grimson spontaneously confessed to the second murder, of which he had not previously been suspected.

He told the local police where he had concealed the bodies and the victims’ remains were found, bearing entirely consistent injuries with those that Grimson said he had inflicted on them.

He was charged with both murders and he pleaded “not guilty”, based on his mental state. However, a psychiatrist commissioned by the defence reported that Grimson was fully responsible for his actions and was an evil and terrifyingly dangerous psychopath. Grimson changed his pleas to guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for each murder.

R v Wallace

Every member of the team is ready to deal with any case brought to our attention by the police, but even we were surprised by the case that perhaps generated the most publicity for the Area in the reporting year.

It was brought to court in a case after its involvement in attacks on two police officers and a doorman at a public house on the Isle of Wight.

It sat next to the magistrates’ bench as one of our experienced lawyers outlined the prosecution case. However, it transpired that “Igwig” the iguana was less an assailant and more an unwitting weapon of attack.

It was his owner, the defendant, who was appearing in front of the magistrates’ court in Newport on the Isle of Wight. She was accused of hurling her two and- a-half feet long pet at the officers and the doorman.

The court was told that the trouble began when the defendant placed Igwig on the heads and shoulders of customers at the Anchor Inn in Cowes.

The doorman, who was alerted to what was happening by the screams of two barmaids, ejected the defendant and her pet from the premises.

“Then all of a sudden she threw the lizard and it hit me on the side of the head. Then it fell to the floor,” he said, adding that during the attack the defendant also smashed a window.

Next to suffer was a police constable who asked the defendant to accompany him to Cowes police station. The officer said that he noticed the iguana hanging around the defendant’s neck. “As I radioed for a colleague, she threw the iguana at me and basically it stuck to my back,” he told the court.

He continued: “It crawled up my back, right up to my ear. I was somewhat concerned because I did not know if it was about to bite me or scratch me.”

A second police officer took up the story and told the court that the defendant threw Igwig at him twice. Apparently, the iguana missed the officer but hit a door and then a filing cabinet.

The defendant, who claimed that Igwig had probably jumped up to defend her, was convicted on one count of assault and two counts of cruelty to an animal. She pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal damage. Igwig was brought to court so that the magistrates who were sitting to try the matter might have a better appreciation of the case.

On 2 April 2002, the defendant was sentenced to a Community Rehabilitation Order for a total of six months, ordered to pay £250 in costs and a total of £170 in compensation.

The case attracted substantial interest in the national press, with Igwig being photographed for a number of newspapers. The news of the case spread as far as Australia and the two officers were interviewed by an Australian radio company.

Igwig the Iguana was allowed home with the defendant and the prosecutor came back to the office, grateful that he had escaped any closer encounter with it than through the bars of the cage.

PERFORMANCE IN THE MAGISTRATES’ COURTS

All prosecutions start in the magistrates’ courts. These include offenses ranging from minor motoring matters to assaults and theft. Usually, the more serious cases proceed to the Crown Court.

Chart 1 Caseload

• Cases received from the police from April 1 2000 to March 31 2001 is 39,282
• Cases dealt with by The CPS from April 1 2000 to March 31 2001 is 43,277
• Cases received from the police from April 1 2001 to March 31 2002 is 39,804
• Cases dealt with by The CPS from April 1 2001 to March 31 2002 is 39,306

The chart shows as received the number of defendants whose cases the Area received from the police and the number of cases completed in each of the last two years. Our caseload depends on the number of cases the police send to us.

Chart 2 Case Categories

April 1 2000 to March 31 2001

• Total cases dealt with 43,277
• Of which summary only 25,458 (58.8%)
• Indictable/either way 16,700 (38.6%)
• Advice 1,068 (2.5%)
• Other 51 (0.1%)

April 1 2001 to March 31 2002

• Total cases dealt with 39,306
• Of which summary only 25,045 (63.7%)
• Indictable/either way 13,409 (34.1%)
• Advice 842 (2.1%)
• Other 10 (0.03%)

Chart 2 shows the different types of work dealt with in the Area. They are:

Summary – cases which can only be tried in the magistrates’ courts.

Indictable/Either Way – Indictable only offences (such as robbery) must be tried in the Crown Court, but either way offences (such as theft) may be tried in either the magistrates’ courts or in the Crown Court.

Advice – cases in which the police ask for our advice about whether proceedings should be started.

Other Proceedings – non-criminal matters, such as forfeiture under the Obscene Publications Acts. Total 43,277 Total 39,306

Chart 3 Case Results

April 1 2000 to March 31 2001

• Total Case Results 33,128
• Of which guilty pleas 28,333 (85.5%)
• Proofs in absence 2,294 (6.9%)
• After Trial 1,701 (5.1%)
• Other (dismissals) 800 (2.4%)

April 1 2001 to March 31 2002

• Total Case Results 33,879
• Of which guilty pleas 28,704 (84.7%)
• Proofs in absence 2,628 (7.8%)
• After Trial 1,919 (5.7%)
• Other (dismissals) 628 (1.9%)

PERFORMANCE IN THE CROWN COURT

Some cases can only be tried in the Crown Court. Other cases go to the Crown Court either because the defendent chooses to be tried there or because the magistrates decide they are serious enough to need Crown Court trial. If a defendent pleads not guilty, the case will be tried before a judge and jury.

Chart 4 Caseload

• Cases received from April 1 2000 to March 31 2001 is 3,584
• Cases dealt with by The CPS from April 1 2000 to March 31 2001 is 3,975
• Cases received from April 1 2001 to March 31 2002 is 3,629
• Cases dealt with by The CPS from April 1 2001 to March 31 2002 is 3,622

The chart shows as received the number of defendants who came before the Crown Court and the number whose case was dealt with there.

Chart 5 Case Categories

April 1 2000 to March 31 2001

• Total cases dealt with 3,975
• Committed for Trial 2,947 (74.1%)
• Appeals 462 (11.6%)
• Committed for sentence 566 (14.2%)

April 1 2001 to March 31 2002

• Total cases dealt with 3,622
• Committed for Trial 2,720 (75.1%)
• Appeals 366 (10.1%)
• Committed for sentence 536 (14.8%)

in Chart 5 shows case categories in the Crown Court. They are:

Committed for trial – Indictable only and some either way cases are sent from the magistrates’ courts for trial to the Crown Court. Since January 2001, indictable only offences have been sent to the Crown Court under section 51, Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which, in most cases, means that committal proceedings are not held.

Appeals – Defendants may appeal to the Crown Court against the conviction and/or the sentence that they received in the magistrates’ court.

Committed for sentence – Some defendants tried and convicted in the magistrates’ courts are committed for sentence to the Crown Court because the magistrates decide that greater punishment is required than they have the power to impose.

Chart 6 Case Results

April 1 2000 to March 31 2001

• Total cases dealt with 2,506
• Guilty Pleas 1,584 (63.2%)
• After Trial 481 (19.2%)
• Acquittals 441 (17.6%)

April 1 2001 to March 31 2002

• Total cases dealt with 2,667
• Guilty Pleas 1,573 (59%)
• After Trial 680 (25.5%)
• Acquittals 414 (15.5%)

PERFORMANCE TARGETS

Performance 1998-1999	Performance 1999-2000	Performance 2000-2001	Target for 2001-2002	Performance 2001-2002
36%	60.6%	69.7%	To increase to 76% the proportion of cases in which committal papers are sent to the defence within agreed timescales.	79% — target met
29%	56%	82.8%	To increase to 85% the proportion of cases in which the brief to counsel is delivered within agreed timescales.	82.5%
No comparable data is available	25 per 100,000	46 per 100,000	To record no more than 24 per 100,000 cases, the number of cases dismissed on a successful submission of no case to answer in the magistrates’ courts which are attributable to failures in CPS review	30.5 per 100,00. Although this figure is relatively high, I am satisfied that it is a true reflection of the position. It equates to just 12 cases out of 39,306 cases finalised during the year.
No comparable data is available	11 per 1,000	6 per 1,000	To record no more than 5 per 1,000 cases, the number of cases that result in an non-jury acquittal in the Crown Court which are attributable to failures in CPS review.	5per 1,000 — target met
90%	87.5%	98.5%	To increase to 95% the proportion of complaints replied to within 10 days of receipt	92.2%
95%	97.7%	99.6%	. To increase to 100% the proportion of prosecution witness expenses sent not later than 10 working days from receipt of a completed claim form.	99.3%
87%	97.1%	93.8%	To increase to 100% the proportion of undisputed invoices paid within 30 days of receipt.	85.6%.This figure is for the entire South East Group of CPS Areas. There are no separate figures for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight
No comparable data is available	80%	100%	To increase to 100% the proportion of responses to correspondence from Members of Parliament within 15 days of receipt.	100% — target met

VISION AND VALUES FOR THE CPS VISION

(The sort of organisation we are trying to build)

OUR VISION IS TO BE A PROSECUTING AUTHORITY OF STATURE, PROVIDING THE BEST POSSIBLE SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC. AN ORGANISATION WHICH:

VALUES PEOPLE

• Demonstrates the belief that people and their knowledge, skills, hard work and commitment give us the capacity to succeed.
• Gives priority to training all our people; giving everyone a chance to fulfil their potential.
• Offers an attractive career structure and opportunities for development.
• Is a good employer: fair, non-discriminatory, open and honest.
• Has a comprehensive commitment to adopting and implementing strong and effective equality policies.

PERFORMS TO A HIGH STANDARD

• Is a devolved, decentralised national Service, in which both HQ and Area recognise and value the contribution each makes.
• Concentrates on the work we are good at and are trained for, and applies the skills and competences of people to ensure success.
• Gives all cases — serious and less serious — proper priority.
• Is well-led, and led by example.
• Is forward-looking, striving continually to improve performance and quality of service.
• Uses taxpayers’ resources to best effect.
• Is nationally accountable and locally answerable.
• INSPIRES PRIDE
• Encourages us to feel proud to work for The CPS and to enjoy the work we do.
• Commands respect for its work — from our partners (the police, the courts, the legal profession, Government departments and others) and the public, and in Parliament.
• Is pro-active and positive in dealing with the media.

WORKS IN PARTNERSHIP

• Has a collegiate approach to work.
• Encourages us to learn from each other, free to seek and offer help and advice without apprehension and regardless of status.
• Works closely with colleagues elsewhere in the criminal justice system.
• Is influential in criminal justice policy making.
• Recognises the value to be gained from working together with others in the criminal justice system to provide the best possible service to the public.

IS PROFESSIONAL

• Has the highest standards of integrity, ability and expertise.
• Is — and is seen to be — fully independent in taking its decisions.
• Shows sensitivity and understanding to victims and witnesses.
• Is well-equipped, using modern technology.

VALUES

The sort of attitudes and behaviour we want to encourage in the

CPS DIRECTION

Understanding The CPS vision and values, aims and objectives, being committed to them and appreciating how our own job contributes to their achievement. Remembering that the key to success is to do our core job of prosecuting well. Providing clear and visible leadership that inspires people to contribute to a successful organisation.

OPENNESS

Being open and honest, and sensitive to the feelings of others. Being prepared to listen. Ensuring people have a say before decisions are taken, and being ready to explain why. Ensuring messages are fed “up” as well as “down”. Taking pride in being a good communicator.

RESPECT

Appreciating that everyone in The CPS has a contribution to make, and encouraging them to make it. Understanding what others in The CPS are seeking to achieve and why — being prepared to consider things from the other person’s point of view. Being ready to trust, and expecting to be trusted. Looking for the good points in people — pausing before we criticise, but not before we give praise.

INTEGRITY

A 100% commitment to personal and professional integrity. Being determined to maintain our independence and integrity whilst working closely with others. Resilient but polite in the face of pressure. Being ready to admit mistakes.

PARTNERSHIP

Working together with others, recognising it takes contributions from all sides to get the right result. Consulting freely with colleagues, being flexible where we can, clear and firm where we cannot. Being ready to coach and support colleagues, sharing expertise and giving advice positively and willingly, without scoring points. Being willing to take controlled risks, supporting each other if things go wrong. Being loyal to our colleagues, wherever they work.

INNOVATION

Being a “self-starter”, taking responsibility for doing the job well. Being constructive, enthusiastic, responsible, responsive and open to new ideas. Being ready to learn from mistakes, searching for ways to do the job better.

DEVELOPMENT

Ensuring our staff get the training and experience they need to realise their full potential. Recognising a responsibility to be competent and to be seen to be competent in the tasks we undertake. Demonstrating commitment to our own development and the development of The CPS as a prosecuting authority of stature.

How to make enquiries or complaints to The Crown Prosecution Service

Complaints:

We aim to deal with complaints sensitively, fairly and in confidence. If your complaint is justified, we will apologise, try to put the matter right and take steps to ensure it does not happen again.

We will try to reply to your complaint within three working days of receiving your letter. If we can’t send you a full reply within that time, we will acknowledge receipt of your letter and aim to send a full reply within 10 working days. The following points explain the procedure for making a complaint.

1 If you wish to complain about the way a case was handled, you should write to The CPS office that originally dealt with it.

Include as much information as possible, such as the name of the defendant, which court dealt with the case, the date of the hearing and any reference numbers you may have.

2 If you aren’t satisfied with the reply you receive from the local office, you should contact the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Area. He or she will take up your complaint and write back to you. The address of your local Area headquarters is listed on the back of this document.

3 If you are still not satisfied, you should contact:

CPS Customer Service Unit 50 Ludgate Hill London EC4M 7EX ܥ 020 7796 8500 (calls may be recorded) Fax: 020 7796 8092 E-mail: complaints@cps.gov.uk

4 Complaints which cannot be resolved satisfactorily at a local level are referred, through the Customer Service Unit, to the Director of Public Prosecutions or Chief Executive who will consider personally how the complaint should be handled and will reply or arrange for a reply to be sent. Your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau may be able to advise you about other means of pursuing your complaint, or you could write to your local MP.

General Information

Contact details for The Crown Prosecution Service

The CPS Public Enquiry Point can provide general information about The CPS and advice on who to contact. The Unit cannot give legal advice but may be able to offer you practical information. The criminal justice system is made up of a number of agencies. They include the following, listed with contact details which may be useful if you are seeking any further information.

CPS Public Enquiry Point

020 7796 8500 (between 9am and 5pm). Outside these hours, you may record your message. Phone calls may be recorded.

E-mail for enquiries and comments: enquiries@cps.gov.uk

E-mail for complaints: complaints@cps.gov.uk CPS website: http://www.cps.gov.uk

CPS Hampshire and Isle of Wight 3rd Floor, Black Horse House 8-10 Leigh Road Eastleigh Hants SO50 9FH

023 8067 3800

CPS Publicity

020 7796 8442 50

Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7EX

Court Service

020 7210 2269

Website: http://www.courtservice.gov.uk

Criminal Justice Joint Planning Unit

Website: http://www.criminal-justicesystem.gov.uk

National Office of Victim Support

020 7735 9166

National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders

020 7582 6500

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)

020 7227 3434

E-mail: acpo@acpo.police.uk

The Home Office: Public Enquiry Service

020 7273 2251

Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

The Lord Chancellor’s Department

020 7210 8500

Website: http://www.lcd.gov.uk

For further information

HAMPSHIRE AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT AREA

Roger Daw is the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Denise Bailey and Julian Williams are the temporary Area Business Managers for CPS Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. All these individuals can be contacted at:

3rd Floor, Black Horse House 8-10 Leigh Road Eastleigh Hampshire SP50 9FH

Telephone: 023 8067 3800

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMPLAINTS OR WOULD LIKE ANY FREE PUBLICATIONS ABOUT THE CPS

Please contact the Chief Crown Prosecutor (address above).

If you are still not satisfied, contact The CPS Customer Service Unit. 50 Ludgate Hill, London EC4M 7EX

Telephone: 020 7796 8500 (calls may be recorded)

Fax: 020 7796 8092

E-mail: complaints@cps.gov.uk

Website: www.cps.gov.uk