Panorama

The Home Office directs the various Police Forces of England Wales and Northern Ireland as to what they need to do to stay within budget and targets.

The introduction of cautions and of conditional cautions was designed to make the life of the police officer easier (less paperwork); to make the Police Service look effective (statistics) and to control money (to keep The Treasury and Home Office happy).

Now that we are approaching an election it is highly likely that those arrested for offences will be charged to Court only so that the Government can say how tough they are and so the Government can flaunt those figures in its election campaign.

The Police talk a lot about looking after victims and victims rights. They disguise their inadequacies by blaming lawyers, judges and everyone else. The idea that a person can be cautioned for biting a woman or for glassing a man is absolutely ridiculous. Police officers will criticise judges for the sentence imposed without any reference or understanding of the Sentencing Guidelines. Those decisions referred to in Panorama were made by Police Officers. There are no lawyers to blame.

Those Chief Constables and those individuals in Police Authorities who have kept silent and gone along with this fraud should resign. Jack Straw should resign.

The problem is that the Government is not willing to pay the price that real policing and real justice demand. They are quick to seek out measures that appear to offer Justice on the cheap.

The Government knows the price of everyting and the inherent value of nothing.

Each Police area command or Metropolitan borough should have on call 24 hours a day a solicitor/barrsiter prosecutor. That person should approve all disposal decisions.

There should be enough solicitor/barrister prosecutors to ensure that each prosecutor can have at least two days in the office to deal with case papers so that cases are dealt with efficiently and proactively.

There should be less money spent on managers and statistic gathering etc and more on properly qualified lawyers.

Prosecutors and the Police should train together. It is incredible how many Police Officers do not understand  evidence or charging guidelines.

From listening to Police Officers one would think that the CPS, Judges and indeed those who act for Defendants just make up what they do on a whim to frustrate the Police. If they actually knew why decisions were made that they did not agree with, they might actually be better police officers.

The only way to deliver real justice is to ensure that there are enough of the best people working at the CPS. Thinking up procedures to save money that look like Justice is no more than a fraud upon the public and the taxpayer.