Not long ago I was spending
a weekend with a J.P. whose court is about one hundred miles away from
my former territory. On the Monday morning as I was about to leave he suggested I
visit his court room as an observer where he was to chair his first court since
becoming an approved chairman. It was a DV court. I was given the privilege of
being a silent occupant of the retiring room when I wasn`t in the public
gallery. The case had been previously listed for trial but the complainant and
two civilian witnesses had not appeared and it had been adjourned for that
Monday. The court was told that the complainant had turned up on a witness
summons but would be treated as hostile. The two others, one of whom had been
witness summonsed only five days previously, did not appear. CPS admitted that
their liason with the witness support unit via the police force had been awry
in this case. The officer in the case had no excuses. Two police officers
neither of whom had witnessed the alleged assault were available. An
adjournment was requested by the CPS and naturally resisted by the defending
lawyer. My friend performed exceedingly astutely for a newbie and prised from
all parties including the L/A all that was to be prised from the history of the
case which went back eight months. The trial went ahead and ended at half time
with “no case to answer”.
When we had a chance to discuss it over
a coffee before I left for home he told me that the L/A was told informally
that CPS went ahead in order that should the defendant be later charged with a
serious offence against the complainant CPS would not be shown as shirking
their job of protecting or trying to protect complainants in DV cases. Some
might consider that that justified CPS but in my opinion it was another example of
trying to pursue the ends by whatever means and forgetting that a defendant in
this country is innocent until proved guilty.
When you say in your final para that "the CPS went ahead", with what? It requested an adjournment as it has a duty to do so, but it was the Bench (and 10 out of 10 to your new chairman friend) which took the decision to go ahead. JPs are now well-trained in Picton et al and effective case management, which states that a trial should go ahead in the absence of a defendant who has not answered bail, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so.
ReplyDeleteThe question one should be asking here is why was the previous listing for the trial adjourned? What interest of justice was the adjournment serving by delaying things?
As the CPS in our own LJA is well aware, the adjournment request in these scenarios is little more than a token gesture, whatever spin is put on it.