Updated: 20 Nov 2023, 1 Nov 2024; 10 Nov 2025

Experts can be of great assistance to magistrates and juries in helping them to determine the issues in a case, including the guilt or innocence of an accused. Prosecutors will require the appropriate knowledge and understanding of the evidence in question to present and challenge expert evidence. The purpose of this Guidance is to assist prosecutors in identifying, understanding and challenging, where appropriate, this type of evidence.

Updated: 26 February 2021, 25 Jan 2023

This guidance explains when prosecutors may institute or reinstitute criminal proceedings after the CPS has told a suspect or defendant that there will not be a prosecution, or that the prosecution has been stopped.

updated 18 Oct 2019; 2 Sep 2024; 29 Jun 2026

Trespass is not of itself a criminal offence. However there are some offences in which trespass is an essential element and this guidance sets out the most commonly encountered examples of such offences. Prosecutors should also have regard as appropriate to the CPS legal guidance on Public Order Offences and Offences during Protests, Demonstrations and Campaigns.

Issued 17 Oct 2013, revised 26 Jul 2017, updated 22 Nov 2018, 11 Jan 2023, 14 Jan 2026; 29 Jun 2026

Updated: 28 Nov 2019; 18 Jun 2026

The CPS has published a Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy for 2017-2020 providing a framework outlining the approach taken to these crimes.

Revised: Jan 2019; 6 Feb 2026; 29 June 2026

Reviewed and udpated: 31/08/2019

The primary duty of the CPS is to deliver justice through the independent and effective prosecution of crime. The purpose of making a charging decision is to determine whether a suspect should be subject to criminal proceedings. The charging decision is the gateway to the criminal justice system with all the protections that the process affords.

Updated: Oct 2019; 24 May 2024; 15 Dec 2025

The purpose of this document is to provide practical and legal guidance to prosecutors dealing with cases that involve children (Article 1 of the UN Convention defines a child as any person who has not yet reached their 18th birthday) as victims and witnesses.

Updated: 5 October 2022, 2 June 2025

Prosecutors will have come across an increasing number of cases in recent years that are not solely confined to the jurisdiction of England and Wales.

Updated: 11 September 2020