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South East

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the main prosecuting authority in England and Wales.

South East map

The CPS has 14 Areas across the country, each headed by a Chief Crown Prosecutor. The South East Area is responsible for prosecuting cases in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

We serve over 4.5 million people and the geographic area we cover is spread over 3,700 square miles, including major entry points to the UK, such as London Gatwick Airport, the Channel Tunnel and the Port of Dover.

CPS South East is headed up by Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown, who is supported by Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutors Sarah Dineley and Judith Reed and Area Business Manager Karen Sawitzki.

We have around 300 members of staff, consisting of lawyers, paralegal officers and Operational Delivery Professionals. Our staff work out of offices in Canterbury, Brighton, Guildford, as well as a small remote team in Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

We also have an Area Business Centre, which includes specialist business support and administrative functions such as human resources, finance, communications and performance, all of which help to support the rest of the business.

Kate Brown, Chief Crown Prosecutor

Kate became Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South East in May 2021.

She began prosecuting for the CPS in 1994 in Shropshire, moving to Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset. She held a variety of positions before becoming the Senior District Crown Prosecutor for South East Hampshire in 2004.

In November 2006 she was appointed as the Temporary Chief Crown Prosecutor for Dorset and was permanently appointed to that role in September 2007. In April 2011 Kate became the Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wessex. Kate is also a Crown Advocate.

She was appointed as the Chief Crown Prosecutor for Wessex in January 2013. Kate became the Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Direct in June 2017 and joined CPS South East in May 2021.


Sarah Dineley, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor

Sarah Dineley, Deputy Chief Crown ProsecutorSarah joined the CPS in 2007 as a Crown Advocate, before being appointed as a District Crown Prosecutor, heading up the Crown Court  team in CPS Wessex the following year. Prior to joining the CPS, Sarah was a criminal defence solicitor and duty solicitor in Hampshire and a regular advocate in the Crown Court and Magistrates’ Court.

Sarah joined CPS South East in October 2017 as the Senior District Crown Prosecutor in charge of the Crown Court teams in Kent, Sussex and Surrey.  

Sarah studied Law and French and attended Grenoble University for a year and has a keen interest in cases involving foreign jurisdictions. She is the International Casework Lead for the area.


Judith Reed, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor

Judith joined CPS South East in May 2023 as Temporary Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor. Prior to this, she was Head of the pan-London Complex Casework Unit from 2019 and has previously been a Temporary DCCP in the East of England.

Judith joined the CPS as an A2 in 1988, before being sponsored through her Legal Practice Course by the CPS and qualifying as a solicitor in 1996. She worked as a prosecutor before moving into legal management roles.

 

 


Karen Sawitzki, Area Business Manager

Karen joined CPS South East as the Area Business Manager (ABM) in October 2022 and prior to this she spent five years as the ABM for CPS Direct.

Karen has worked in the Criminal Justice System (CJS) for nearly 40 years.

Karen became the ABM for CPS Wiltshire in 2003, for Thames Valley in 2005, and the Senior ABM for the Thames and Chiltern Group in 2007. In September 2009 she was seconded to the Attorney General's Office as a Senior Policy Advisor. In January 2010 Karen was seconded to CPS HQ as part of the Capability Review Implementation Programme team. In August 2010 she returned to Thames and Chiltern and was the ABM for CPS Thames and Chiltern.

In September 2014 Karen became the ABM for CPS West Midlands before joining CPS Direct in June 2017.

The Magistrates’ Court Team is made up of prosecutors, supported by a team of administrators, who help to ensure cases are prepared digitally and ready for court. Our prosecutors either work as advocates in the Magistrates’ Courts across Kent, Surrey and Sussex or in one of our offices preparing cases where we anticipate people will plead not guilty and the case will go to trial. 

The Crown Court team has prosecutors and a team of paralegal and administrative staff, who help to prepare cases. The majority of prosecutors in this team review cases and ensure they are ready for court, but we have a team of Crown Advocates, who prosecute cases in the Crown Court. 

Our Complex Casework Unit (CCU) deals with the most complex cases in the South East and handles one of the largest volumes of complex cases in the country. Their work includes dealing with human trafficking, cross border crimes, “cold case” murders, fatal road collisions, sudden infant death, substantial fraud, money laundering and major public disorder offences. 

Our Rape and Serious Sexual Offences team (RASSO) is staffed by specially trained lawyers and paralegal officers and they handle rape cases, including attempted rape, along with child sexual abuse cases, including historic cases and all other serious sexual offences. 

Working with you

CPS South East is committed to providing the best possible service we can to victims and witnesses in our cases, as they are vital in helping us to bring people to justice.

We work with the members of our Local Scrutiny Involvement Panels to improve the prosecution process as a whole. They are made up of community representatives and invited members from other agencies in the criminal justice system, such as the police. One panel looks at hate crime, while the other focuses on violence against women and girls. They both review our performance and randomly selected cases to see where improvements can be made.

Victims and Witnesses

Victims and witnesses are vital in helping the Crown Prosecution Service to bring people to justice in Kent, Surrey and Sussex and ensuring that they receive the best possible service from the CPS is one of our priorities.

We have held a series of workshops for our staff, so they can hear from victims themselves and organisations that work with victims. The aim was to give them an understanding of how victims view the way they are treated during the cases we prosecute.

Below, you will find details of local organisations that can support you if you have been the victim of a rape, sexual abuse, hate crime or domestic abuse, as we understand how difficult it can be to come forward and report any of these types of crimes. 

Contact details for Victims' Right to Review and complaints

The VRR scheme makes it easier for victims to seek a review of a CPS decision not to bring charges or to terminate proceedings.

If you are a victim seeking to exercise your right to request a review of a CPS decision not to bring charges, discontinue proceedings or offer no evidence in a case please click here.

South East contact point for Victims' Right to Review enquiries:
Email: SouthEastVRRandcomplaints@cps.gov.uk
Telephone: 01273 322283

Please note that the scheme applies only in relation to qualifying decisions made on or after 5 June 2013. 

Victims' Right to Review Scheme

Contact us

Riding Gate House
37 Old Dover Road
Canterbury
Kent, CT1 3JG
Telephone: 01227 866000 (General Switchboard)
General Fax: 01227 866001
DX: 5349 Canterbury 1

Millmead House
Millmead
Guildford, GU2 4BB
Telephone: 01227 866000 (General Switchboard)
General Fax: 01483 468282
DX: 122041 Guildford 10

Brighton Police Station
John Street
Brighton
East Sussex
BN2 0LA
Telephone: 01227 866000 (General Switchboard)
General Fax: 01273 765606
DX: 149840 Hove 6

News Centre

If you are a local or regional journalist in Kent, Surrey or Sussex, please contact

Area Communications Manager
Cheryl Pendry
Telephone: 01227 655862
Email: cheryl.pendry@cps.gov.uk

If you are a member of the national media, please call the CPS Press Office on 020 3357 0906 or email cps.pressoffice@cps.gov.uk
 
Out of hours: 020 3357 0913 for emergency media queries only.

Complaints

If you would like to provide feedback or make a complaint on any aspect of our service, we would like to hear from you. Please note we can only enter into email correspondence about cases via secure email addresses, i.e. emails sent from gsi or pnn CJSM email accounts.

If you have any feedback or complaints, contact us via email at SouthEastVRRandcomplaints@cps.gov.uk or by calling 01227 866000 and selecting option 3 for the Victim Liaison Unit between 9:00am and 5:00pm on weekdays.

Before contacting us please note:

  • We do not provide legal advice. 
  • We cannot enter into email correspondence about cases. 
  • If you have feedback or a complaint, please use the link on the footer. 

If you are contacting us about a specific case, you will need to contact the team responsible. This is divided by county and whether the case is being held in the Magistrates’ or Crown Court:

Magistrates' courts:

SE.MagistratesCourt@cps.gov.uk

Crown Courts:

SE.CrownCourt@cps.gov.uk

NB: The above email addresses must not be used to send evidence or other material that contains personal data about court cases.

Contact Information for the defence

The following email addresses are for the sole use of defence firms who are on the Criminal Justice Secure email system (CJSM).

Please note if you have sent this email from any account other than a CJSM account, we will not respond electronically to your request. Further information on CJSM.

Please ensure that the following information is provided in the email:

SUBJECT BOX - Unique Reference Number (URN) and court centre.
BODY OF EMAIL - Defendant's name, date of birth, date of hearing and nature of request.

Failure to include this information will result in a delay processing your request.

Magistrates' Court
All requests for Initial Detail of Prosecution Cases (IDPC) should be emailed to SE.IDPC@cps.gov.uk.cjsm.net

Area-based charging
For Complex Casework Unit cases, please email SE.CrownCourt@cps.gov.uk.cjsm.net

If you have a query, correspondence, digital evidence or charging information relating to a RASSO case, please email SE.CrownCourt@cps.gov.uk.cjsm.net

Community engagement

If you’re interested in joining the Local Scrutiny Involvement Panel or you would like to subscribe to receive our regular newsletters on the work we do to tackle hate crime and violence against women and girls, please contact: SouthEast.Communications@cps.gov.uk

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