Met v CPS: The War at the Heart of Criminal Law
In a perfect world, the criminal justice system in England and Wales would be seamless: the police would catch criminals, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would prosecute them, and the courts would give them a fair trial.
It is not always quite so joined-up as that but now the police have gone on the attack and are accusing the CPS of “cherry-picking” cases to improve conviction rates.
That claim comes from no less than Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He argued in an interview with the Evening Standard that prosecutors were avoiding harder cases and that this endangered the victims of domestic violence and other crimes. Furthermore, an 80% success rate is not, according to Rowley, something that the CPS should be proud of because it proves that they are failing to take on more complex cases where the result is not guaranteed.
Is the Commissioner correct?