Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
The director of public prosecutions has pledged to apologise over failures in 47 rape and serious sexual offence cases where vital evidence was withheld from defence lawyers.
From Juliet Bremner with ITV(UK).
On Tuesday, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed that issues with disclosure had been identified in 47 of 3,637 cases in England and Wales that were reviewed between January and mid-February.
These included five where disclosure was the primary reason why the case had to be stopped.
In the remaining 42 there were additional reasons including communications data such as text messages, emails and social media being examined too late; a failure to get material from third parties such as medical or social services records; or new evidence emerging after charge.