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Speaking out on collapsed trials

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29 June 2018 / Dr Jon Robins
Issue: 7800 / Categories: Opinion , Criminal
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Jon Robins asks whether the CPS is telling us all it knows about disclosure failures

Earlier this year the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if it was possible that there were people in prison today because of disclosure failures. Apparently, not. ‘I don’t think so because what these cases show is that when we take a case through to trial there are various safeguards in place, not least of which is the defence indicating what their defence is going to be,’ Alison Saunders replied.

As reported in NLJ (see ‘Nightmare on Disclosure Street’, NLJ 16 March 2018, p22), such assurance in the face of a stream of collapsed trials was greeted with scepticism and some ridicule. 

In an appearance before the House of Common’s Justice Committee this month, the DPP retreated from such a claim. ‘Some people have been and they have been referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and some people we have referred to the Commission,’

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