Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 9 MAY 2000
MR DAVID
CALVERT-SMITH
QC AND MR
MARK ADDISON
40. You mentioned, Mr Calvert-Smith, the importance
of CJUs in addressing some of the past recriminations that appear
to have existed between the police and the CPS. How would you
expect that new partnership to address those problems?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I think that when you are working
together to produce one file on a case the whole atmosphere is
going to be one of building a case, which is what prosecuting
should be about. Hopefully the sheer process will improve relations
and there will be an understanding on both sides, or a better
understanding, of what is possible. So often in the past perhaps
we have blamed the police for things which were really beyond
their control and which they could not have done any quicker or
as it might be, and vice versa, simply because we did not really
understand the constraints and difficulties that the other side
was working under. I do believe, also, that there is a recognition
now, which was not perhaps universal when the CPS was set up,
that a national prosecution service that is properly run and properly
staffed and resourced adds value to the police's work and, therefore,
perhaps there is not the resentment that there may have been in
some quarters in 1986 to the fact the CPS was taking what hitherto
had been largely a police function away from it.
41. Just one point on that. As I understand
it, the CPS has bid for resources to fund research into downgrading
and discontinued prosecutions. Why has it done that? What does
it hope to recover from that research? How successful has it been?
(Mr Addison) David, you may want to say something
about downgrading. Just on the process and the origin of that
approach, one of the Glidewell Report recommendations was that
there should be further research undertaken into downgrading of
charges and we have been anxious to get on with it. We have been
constrained by the fact we do not have a research budget so we
are hoping in the context of spending review CSR 2000 to put that
right. Meanwhile, the Inspectorate are able to look at those issues
on a case by case basis as they go around the country. David,
do you want to say something about downgrading more generally?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) The general topic. I do not believe
that downgrading and discontinuance is quite the problem that
perhaps it seemed to be at the time of the Glidewell Review. I
am not saying it is not a problem, I am not saying that we should
not do our level best if we can get the research up and running
to check whether there are particular types of case—which
was what I think Sir Iain Glidewell was concerned about—where
we are routinely downgrading or discontinuing over and above any
other type of case and what the reasons for that may be. I think
that the greater openness which I am anxious to achieve, again
as a result of the Glidewell Recommendation but also as a result
of the Macpherson Report, in explaining ourselves to people on
individual decisions, will actually go a long way again to allaying
the concern. If people understand precisely why it is that originally
it was charged as a robbery but is now theft, or was originally
charged but now having looked at the case the evidence really
is not there and we are going to have to discontinue it, then
I think again some of the concerns which were strongly expressed
at the time of Glidewell will tend to dissipate. The discontinuance
rate not analysed as between particular types of offence has been
really pretty well constant for years now at about 12 per cent.
When one bears in mind that one of the functions of the CPS was
to provide a filter for cases which it was then perceived were
getting through to courts which should not have done, then it
is perhaps not surprising that some such percentage is the sort
of filter that we are applying.
Mr Cawsey
42. I just want to ask a question on this working
with the police and in particular this issue about downgrading
and discontinuance. I am slightly out of date in one respect but
up to 1997 I had spent four years chairing a police authority.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
43. Certainly it was not my experience that
the police thought there was a recognition that there was added
value for a national prosecution service, except perhaps on more
serious crimes. One of the things which used to be put to me over
and over again by police officers of all sorts of ranks was that
they felt that a whole number of crimes could be dealt with directly
by the police where they could decide for themselves that they
should be prosecuted and that local solicitors could be employed
to do that job. You would get a better balanced legal service
because local solicitors would be doing prosecution as well as
defence and if there were to be downgrading or discontinuance
it would be decided very locally by police and the effect on morale
of officers, because they would understand the decisions, all
that would be there. They would wax lyrical that there were days
gone by when that was very much how it used to be.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Right.
44. We all know that summers were hotter, the
grass was greener and the England cricket team did better than
it does now, but what I am really trying to get to, you obviously
do not agree with my opinion, is it still seems to me that many
people in the police believe that. What is wrong with that idea?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I think one has to go back really
to the late 1970s when there were very, very strong concerns,
obviously not shared within the police service, or potentially
from your experience. The concerns were that it was not right
to leave the decisions in the volume cases effectively in the
hands of the police who would apply different standards from one
end of the country according to the likes and dislikes of the
individual chief constable, as it might be, and which was not
accountable in any sense, for instance, to this sort of forum,
not consistent, and that far too many cases were being prosecuted
which should never have been prosecuted, they were ending up in
wasted money, in defendants being discharged by judge's order
after months of worry for the defendant, victims and so on. There
was a very strong call, I believe it then to have been an all
party call, for the setting up of a national service. Of course
there are still people, because we are only 15 years in, who remember
the good old days. There were undoubtedly abuses under that system.
Of course individual defendants did not then have the rights that
they now do to immediate access to lawyers and so on and, therefore,
if one was to go back to Mr Cawsey's good old days there would
not be quite that concern. But the degree of consistency that
is achieved by a service with national standards staffed by lawyers
who have that as their only function is in my view, on balance,
a benefit. Sir Iain Glidewell clearly looked at the position afresh
and came to the same conclusion.
Chairman
45. Did the Trial Units in a sense come some
way to meeting some of Mr Cawsey's comments?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I hope that the Criminal Justice
Units and Trial Units together will meet those comments. What
I was trying to say earlier is, I do believe that co-operation
rather than stand-off is now the order of the day, whatever may
have been the case up to 1997.
Mr Howarth: Chairman, forgive me, Mr Calvert-Smith
and Mr Addison, for not having been with you at the outset, I
was chairing a conference on law and order in Whitehall.
Chairman: A rival event.
Mr Howarth
46. The tickets have been sold already, Chairman.
There was a specific case which I wish to raise because I have
been in correspondence both with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner
and also with the Attorney-General and that is the case of the
proprietor of Harrods, Mr Fayed. I have been told by the Attorney-General
that there is no new evidence on which to base criminal proceedings
and that the Crown Prosecution Service has looked into this matter,
having decided in 1998 that there was not evidence to justify
proceedings. Of course since then there has been the case of the
action by the late Mr Tiny Rowland continued by his widow where,
contrary to what the Attorney-General has told me in a letter
that the matter was settled out of court, in fact Mr Fayed consented
to judgment, in other words he accepted everything that had been
said, namely that he and his staff had been responsible for the
break-in of the security deposit box leased by Mr Rowland from
Harrods. It does strike people in this country as being extraordinary
that whilst an individual who seeks to protect himself in his
own home can have the full weight of the law brought upon him,
a foreign businessman who is not even worthy of British citizenship
can nevertheless go through court proceedings where he is forced
to retract everything that he has said, forced to pay out millions
of pounds in damages and the authorities in this country seem
totally powerless or, dare I say it, unwilling to act. I wonder
whether you have a response? I quite accept this is an individual
case but it is not one of which you will not have had prior notice
in the sense that it has been very much in the public domain.
Given that the Attorney-General has written to me as recently
as the end of last month saying he has been in touch with the
CPS Director I wonder if you can explain to me just why it is
this man seems to be able to get away with everything?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I do not think I ought to comment
on the rights and wrongs of Mr Fayed's behaviour. Personally I
have not had dealings with the case, it has been dealt with within
the office and all I really know about it is what everybody around
this table knows about it. I think it is a very dangerous course
to try and compare unlike with unlike. We deal with cases on the
evidence. If there is the evidence there then we prosecute unless
it is not in the public interest. If there was evidence of serious
wrong-doing by Mr Fayed or anybody else then I am quite sure that
we would put that point forward for it to be tested.
47. Mr Calvert-Smith, I am afraid to say I do
not think that can conceivably be the case—you are Director
of Public Prosecutions and I presume you read the newspapers and
you can see what is said—the idea that as Director you do
not know anything about this. The Attorney-General writing to
me on 20 April said "I have now received a full report by
the Head of the London division on the case by the Directorate
of CPS headquarters". Are you suggesting to me that this
is a matter—given that it is of such high profile in this
country—which has not reached your desk and you have never
been consulted about it?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
48. I just find that extraordinary. I think
the public will also find that extraordinary given the nature
of the concerns about this particular gentleman.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Perhaps I could give you some idea
of the sorts of case that I have been reading personally recently
and attempting to run a service and deal with 42 areas and so
on. Currently I am re-reviewing personally the Stephen Jones case
which I was asked about earlier. I am anxiously trying to reach
a conclusion in the Lancet inquiry, which is a huge inquiry into
police corruption in Cleveland. I am afraid the dealings of this
case have not been thought of sufficient note to be brought to
my attention. Basically I am asked to deal with cases not because
they are high profile but because they are difficult. If the decision
is an easy decision there is really no point it coming past my
desk. If it is a difficult decision then people bring it up the
line, sometimes as far as me.
Chairman: I think we are going to have to move
on. Mr Calvert-Smith has made clear he has no first hand knowledge
of this.
Mr Howarth
49. Can I thank Mr Calvert-Smith for that response.
The public does not expect you to deal with every case. May I
just put it to you in the circumstances, given the weight of evidence
in the newspapers at any rate and certainly in the transcript
of the proceedings, that this is something which you ought now
perhaps to look at. May I invite you to give it some consideration.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I will.
Mr Howarth: Thank you.
Mrs Dean
50. Can I turn now to the Review of the Code
for Crown Prosecutors, which you mentioned earlier. The aim of
the Review explicitly emphasises the rights and interests of victims.
In what way does the present Code not adequately address victims'
rights and interests?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Would you give me a moment? I think
I have the Code. I was going to try and read to you chapter and
verse, I will give you the gist. The Code indicates currently
that the victims' interests should be considered in making a decision
in the public interest. There are specific ways in which the victims'
"interest" be considered. One is if the institution
of proceedings is likely to have a harmful effect on the victim
him or herself. As is sometimes the case, if the medical advice
is that to take proceedings against an offender is going to make
things worse for the victim, well, then that is something we take
into consideration. There is no specific reference in the Code
either to the duty, which I see as a duty, to keep victims informed,
which has hitherto been done by the police via the mechanism of
the Victim's Charter or, more controversially, for their views
to be taken. One of the things that may find its way into the
Code is a more explicit reference to the Glidewell/Macpherson
recommendations which as a service I am anxious we should take
on. We should explain ourselves more than we have done at the
moment and the Code does not really contain anything beyond, as
I say, the "interests" of the victim. That is why I
think the Code may need looking at again in terms of victims.
51. Will you be taking into account the need
to perhaps have more background information on a victim so that
accusations in court, for instance, that may be derogatory to
the victim might be more easily challenged than they are currently?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes. That is a process that is
going on perhaps irrespective of the Code review. Victim Impact
Statements are now playing a much greater role. Their contents
are being defined. There was a case last week in the Court of
Appeal in which the Court of Appeal laid down guidelines as to
the sorts of topic which a Victim Impact Statement should cover.
Of course we have had now for some time, albeit like all these
changes it has taken time to work its way into people's consciousness,
derogatory mitigation being challenged by information got from
a Victim Impact Statement so that sometimes a defendant has got
away with making imputations of the character of a victim in the
past and the judge has sentenced on the basis that those imputations
are true. All those are very close to my heart and, indeed, to
that of the Service.
52. Is the CPS Prosecution Manual to be updated
in parallel with the Code?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
53. Lastly, the Government has made the joined
up operation of the criminal justice system a priority. What arrangements
are being made for the CPS Inspectorate to participate in joined
up inspections?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) There is a programme of inspections
planned, many of which will involve other inspectorates. A recent
report on information flows—perhaps not the most newsworthy
topic, and therefore the press conference I think was attended
by nobody whatever—did in fact involve all six principal
inspectorates because obviously information flows between all
six agencies. I think in future you will be seeing many, many
more joint inspectorate reports.
Mr Russell
54. Mr Calvert-Smith, in reply to a question
earlier from the Chair on suicides in police station cells, when
you look into those will you see how many of the suicides—if
indeed they were suicides—occurred in what are called "safe
cells"?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) By and large we are perhaps not
the best agency to try and collect statistics. As I say, we only
investigate cases which come to us from the police; if they do
not get as far as us then we do not even officially look at them.
Of course the coroner's inquest frequently makes comments upon
the procedures and the safety of the cell accommodation.
55. I just leave the thought that perhaps that
may be a question you would like to address as each one comes,
how many of them occurred in a safe cell.
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
56. Connect 42, which is going to be piloted
in Sussex, I am told, between April and June, so presumably the
pilot has started?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) Yes.
57. It is going to be rolled out nationally.
Is it on target?
(Mr Calvert-Smith) I will ask the Chief Executive
but I am hoping he will be able to say yes.
(Mr Addison) Yes.
58. This time next year all will be well?
(Mr Addison) The timetable for roll out, because it
is subject to the evaluation of the pilot, assuming that goes
smoothly roll out will start in August and the aim is it should
be completed by July next year. This time next year most of it
should be rolled out but not quite all.
59. To what extent will the modernised Crown
Prosecution Service information technology structure be compatible
with IT provision in the other elements of the criminal justice
system?
(Mr Addison) I think it is helpful to break our IT
programme down into two bits. The first bit is the one that you
have just mentioned, Connect 42, which is the delivery of some
really essential kit and software throughout the organisation.
We have been left behind by the IT revolution in CPS and we are
trying to catch up. The first thing to do is to equip our offices
with the hardware and basic office software they need to begin
moving up the learning curve. The next step is what is called
our big strategic system, which is called Compass, which is designed
to be the system that will link up with all the other systems
which are under development across the wider criminal justice
system. In particular Compass will enable us to take electronic
files from the police. Instead of having to send these physically
in a document they will transmit these electronically to us from
the system that they are developing called NSPIS and we will then
be able to feed it on to the other bits of the criminal justice
system. The timetable for that is a bit longer but within three
to four years the objective is that the whole of the criminal
justice system should be able to communicate with the other bits
of it electronically and files should move seamlessly around the
system.
|
