CPS West Midlands

Annual Report 2001-2002

Introduction by the Chief Crown Prosecutor

I am the Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS West Midlands. This is our third Annual Report. Over the next couple of pages I would like to set out what I believe to be some of our achievements over the last 12 months and some of the challenges still facing us.

In order to put our work in context it will be helpful to set out the two aims the Government has for the criminal justice system:

• to reduce crime and the fear of crime and their social and economic costs; and
• to dispense justice fairly and efficiently and to promote confidence in the rule of law.

The CPS vision supports the achievement of these two aims, namely "to be a prosecuting authority of stature, providing the best possible service to society. We want to be a professional organisation which values all its people, performs to a high standard, inspires public confidence and works in partnership".

I believe that what we have achieved over the last 12 months has contributed both to the Government's aims and to our own vision. I hope you will take the time to read this report. If you would like to raise any issues about The Crown Prosecution Service then please write to us at the address provided at the rear of this report. We would be pleased to hear from you and would seek to address any issues that you raise. Highlights during the year, detailed later in the report, have included:

• The continued roll out of co-located offices
• Persistent Young Offenders
• Improving the effectiveness of domestic violence prosecutions
• Greater support for victims and witnesses
• Witness support to prosecutions
• Promoting equality and diversity
• Witness support to prosecutions Robbery/Street Crime
• Unified pre-trial review system

In conclusion, my key message this year is that we have worked with and supported other criminal justice agencies to improve the criminal justice system in the West Midlands. Performance has improved through the successful development and implementation of a range of key issues. We are not complacent. There is still a long way to go.

I would like to publicly record my thanks to the commitment and the professionalism of The CPS staff in the West Midlands.

I hope that you will take a few minutes to read the rest of this report and, I repeat, if you would like to write to us we will be happy to respond.

David Blundell Chief Crown Prosecutor

Area Business Manager's Report

As Area Business Manager my role is to support the Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP) by dealing with the administrative aspects of the Area.

2001/02 was another challenging but rewarding year for us.

We have continued with our restructuring of the Area. We now have co-located Criminal Justice Units with West Midlands Police at Brierley Hill, Coventry, Halesowen, Solihull and West Bromwich. We are currently in the process of setting up further units at Bournville Lane (Birmingham), Walsall and Wolverhampton.

All the co-located units have demonstrated a more efficient and effective way of working together between ourselves and the police whilst maintaining the independence of both.

The Area is represented by 127 lawyers and 262 caseworkers and administrative staff. The Area has sought and continues to seek to increase the number of Lawyers it employs.

In addition we are looking at ways that we can increase and continue to improve our Caseworker coverage in the Crown Court. Both initiatives are designed to improve the service we provide to victims and witness, counsel, the courts and all our colleagues involved in the Criminal Justice Service. In this respect we are always looking to improve the service we provide and if anyone reading this report has an idea of how we might improve we would very much welcome hearing from them (the address of our Communications Officer can be found at the back of the report).

Finally one of my responsibilities is managing the area budget. In 2001/02 we had a running cost budget of £14.1 million together with a prosecution cost budget of £5.8 million (mainly the cost of counsel and witness expenses).

Business Plan for 2002/03

Our Business Plan for 2002/03 sets out a framework based around five themes:

• Performance-delivering more effective prosecutions
• Public confidence-developing a greater public service ethos
• Professionalism and developing the role of The CPS
• Partnerships-working with others to drive up criminal justice service performance
• People-continuing to develop a modern diverse organisation

This will be just as challenging as the issues we tackled last year, but is designed with the overall aim of improving the service we provide to the people of the West Midlands.

Cases Finalised In the magistrates' court

We finalised 88,526 cases in the Magistrates' Court this year, an increase on last year's figure of 82,839 (6.9%).

Cases Finalised in the Crown Court

In the Crown Court we finalised 8,958 cases, a very slight increase on last year's figure of 8,925 (0.4%).

Mike Grist Area Business Manager

About CPS West Midlands

CPS West Midlands highlights include:

The continued roll out of co-located offices

In 1999 Sir Iain Glidewell conducted an independent review of The Crown Prosecution Service and one of his key recommendations was the closer working relationship of The CPS and the police. The result has been co-located criminal justice units which ensure that The CPS maintains its independence while benefiting from co-location with the police.

The CPS and the police are keen to maintain the current momentum. Each established unit works better than when The CPS and police worked in different locations. This is because of the improved communications, greater understanding and greater commitment to work together. We hope to be the first CPS Area in the country to complete on Area wide establishment of co-located units.

Persistent Young Offenders

The Government set all criminal justice agencies the target to reduce the average processing time for persistent young offenders from 142 days to 71 days. This was a challenging target which was measured from the point of arrest to the point of sentence. In the West Midlands we achieved this target and are currently finalising cases within about 65 days of arrest. This is a significant achievement which reflects genuine partnership working by all criminal justice agencies and their willingness to try new and innovative way of working.

Greater support for victims and witnesses

For some considerable time the Government has expressed its concern that the criminal justice system has become too "defendant focused". It is right that defendants should have their rights jealously guarded but there should be a greater focus on victims and witnesses.

Historically the police had the primary responsibility for informing victims of the progress of a prosecution. This included informing them when a case was discontinued or charges were withdrawn or altered: The CPS had no involvement in this process. The Glidewell Report recommended that CPS should be responsible for informing victims of prosecution decisions. The Macpherson Report into the death of Stephen Lawrence also considered The CPS should be informing a victim or victim's family of a decision to discontinue proceedings.

As a result we are committed to explaining the reason for our decisions to victims, as far as we possibly can, in those cases where charges are dropped or substantially altered. In certain categories of cases (deaths, sexual offences, child abuse cases and racially aggravated offences) a meeting will always be offered to the victim or victim's family.

Piloting began on this initiative in November 1999 in selected CPS Areas and the initiative was fully introduced throughout the West Midlands Area by 1 October 2002.

From 24 July 2002 the police and The CPS will seek to identify victims or witnesses who, within the terms of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, could be described as vulnerable or intimidated. Vulnerable or intimidated witnesses will be able to give their evidence by means of a tape recorded interview with the police. Cross-examination could take place via a TV link rather than via the witness box within the courtroom.

In appropriate cases the victim and witness will be able to attend court for a pre-court familiarisation visit when it would be expected that they would meet with the prosecutor, the police and, where appropriate, prosecuting counsel. The meeting will provide an opportunity of ensuring that the measures taken by the prosecution will best meet the needs of the victim or witness. The successful implementation of these and other measures will greatly assist witnesses to give their evidence to the best of their recollection and, hopefully, reduce the fear or pressure of giving evidence.

Promoting equality and diversity

We have worked throughout the year with other criminal justice agencies and the voluntary sector in order to promote the criminal justice system and, in particular, the role of The Crown Prosecution Service. We held a multi-agency Home Office sponsored conference at Wolverhampton to discuss the results of a MORI poll which we commissioned to identify the levels of confidence in the criminal justice system within the West Midlands. Public confidence needs to be improved by demonstrating that more offenders will be caught, brought to justice and properly sentenced. The holding of the conference provided us with a clear focus on a range of measures which we are undertaking along with our criminal justice partners.

The Crown Prosecution Service monitors all aspects of the prosecution of racially aggravated offences. The reports are published and shared with our criminal justice partners together with our colleagues in the voluntary sector.

We have recently agreed with two voluntary groups in Birmingham — the Birmingham Race Action Monitoring Unit and Birmingham Partnership Against Racial Harassment — to meet with them and discuss how we can best support victims who have been subjected to racial attacks. If these meetings are successful we intend to extend them across the West Midlands.

We believe that communities will have greater confidence in our decisions if our workforce reflects the communities within the West Midlands. We have set targets for all levels of staff to reflect this aim and are close to achieving our targets well before the target date of 2005. The West Midlands is a diverse multi-cultural area. We intend to have a diverse multi-cultural workforce.

PARVEEN HASSAN — Equality and Diversity Officer

As the New Equality and Diversity officer for the Midlands Family Group, created following the Sylvia Denman Report on race discrimination within The CPS, I am hoping to add value to the hard work that is already in place in the West Midlands.

There are many challenges being faced as the organisation evolves in line with the Ministerial objectives for the criminal justice system. My role will entail improving public confidence in The CPS through the local community, by advising on opportunities for effective community engagement, identifying areas for development to the Diversity Racial Equality Action Plans and supporting the Area Equal Opportunities Officers on Diversity Equality issues.

If you wish to contact me on the nature of my strategic role within The CPS, my telephone number is 0121 262 1330.

VINNY BOLINA — Area Community and Communications Manager

One of The Crown Prosecution Service's strategies is to engage with different community groups so that the service that we provide is part of and not apart from the society we serve. The Crown Prosecution Service should inform, listen, work with and be informed by diverse communities.

As the Community and Communications Manager for The Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands, I intend to achieve this by acting as an interface between the community in the West Midlands and The CPS, by inviting members of the community onto CPS working groups and working closely with The CPS Equality Diversity Officer. Through this work, victims and witnesses should have confidence in the prosecution process and diverse communities should know we treat them equally.

Another of The Crown Prosecution Service strategies is communication, both internal as well as external. We are all aware that The CPS has to be more proactive when it comes to the media. The objective is to win, preserve and enhance the reputation of The CPS in the West Midlands.

Internally the challenge is to facilitate the flow of accurate and timely information and encourage innovation and learning. Currently a review of internal communication is being carried out and visits have been made to Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton to meet staff and obtain feedback from staff from all grades on how we can improve our service we provide to them.

In conclusion, communication, both internal and external, must now come centre stage where it can play a proper part in raising the profile of The CPS, help the public understand what we do, and raise staff pride.

Improving the effectiveness of domestic violence prosecutions

In November 2001, The CPS launched the new CPS Domestic Violence Policy. This policy was developed after extensive consultation with women's aid groups, victim support organisations and criminal justice system agencies.

The policy centres on the need to ensure the safety of victims and their children while holding abusers accountable for their actions, and provides important guidance for all prosecutors responsible for reviewing and presenting such cases before court. If you require full details of the policy please contact Vinny Bolina, Communication and Community Officer at CPS West Midlands, full address on the back of this report.

To ensure such prosecutions are as effective as possible The CPS West Midlands have, together with the West Midlands Police, published a Service Level Agreement setting out how we intend to provide support to complainants in order to ensure fewer cases are abandoned after initial complaint.

One of the impediments to successful prosecutions of domestic violence cases is the high levels of nonattendance by victims. The speed of prosecution and support to victims are particularly important. We have worked in partnership with the magistrates' courts and the Probation Service to establish a domestic violence court at Wolverhampton Magistrates' Court. It is hoped that the specialisation which that court will provide, together with the focus on domestic violence cases, will ensure greater support to victims and greater understanding of the emotional turmoil they face in giving evidence in these proceedings.

The pilot at Wolverhampton will be evaluated before decisions are taken for the rest of the West Midlands.

Witness support to prosecutions

A high proportion of cracked and ineffective trials occur because witnesses who are warned to attend court fail to attend to give their evidence.

The Area has been monitoring all cracked and ineffective trials in the magistrates' court. This analysis has proved invaluable and it has highlighted that we have a significant problem in relation to the attendance of prosecution witnesses. Failure of witnesses to attend is having a severe impact on the throughput of work and the outcome of proceedings.

A Witness Care Conference was held, hosted by West Midlands Police and involving delegates from the police, CPS, Magistrates' Court, Witness Service and Victim Support.

A working group has been established to identify the main themes and issues arising from the Conference and to establish witness/victim care pilots in the West Midlands Area.

This project is a good example of how the Criminal Justice Agencies and outside bodies are working together to improve the service to the public and public perception of that service.

Robbery/Street Crime

Safer Streets II is a multi-agency focus on robberies and street crimes (covering robberies, snatch thefts, car jacking and firearms offences). A multi-agency protocol was developed with the aims of:

• Short term — increase the number of arrests and convictions and the timely and efficient handling of such cases.
• Longer term — to reduce the level of street crime, the public's fear of crime and to increase public confidence in the criminal justice system.
• Improve the experience of victims and witnesses of the judicial process.

Reported robberies are falling; video identification parades have been introduced; The CPS provide pre charge advice to the police; victims receive the support of the police and victim service and the police, with other criminal justice agencies, are involved in an intensive education programme to warn young people of the dangers of robberies both in terms of being a victim or an offender. We are confident that Safer Streets II will achieve its aims.

Unified pre trial review system

A new pre trial review system has been established in order to discuss with defence solicitors appropriate potential trials. The intention is to identify at a very early stage the necessary witnesses, the charges and whether any alternative charges would result in guilty pleas without the attendance of witnesses.

Too many trials are ineffective (see above re: witness problems), waste court time and the time of prosecution and defence witnesses. We are hopeful that a well-focused PTR system will assist in reducing ineffective trials.

The Area has been monitoring all cracked and ineffective trials in the magistrates' court. This analysis has proved invaluable and it has highlighted that we have a significant problem in relation tothe attendance of prosecution witnesses. Failureof witnesses to attend is having a severe impact on the throughput of work and the outcome of proceedings.

Attorney General's Visit to CPS Birmingham on 11March 2002

On the 11 March 2002 the Attorney General, Lord Peter Goldsmith QC paid a visit to CPS Birmingham to meet staff as well as representatives from the Criminal Justice Partners.

After the visit he sent a thank you letter to David Blundell the CCP:

"Thank you very much for your hospitality and the warm reception I received from the staff during my visit to The CPS Birmingham offices on Monday, 11 March.

Visits to CPS offices provide me with a valuable opportunity of seeing how the Service is operating. On this occasion, as on others, I was impressed by the preparedness of the staff to speak to me about the issues affecting their work.

I found the explanations of the work of the various branches and units useful and informative.

The work undertaken by all your staff in relation to reducing the average time taken to deal with PYO (persistent young offenders) is particularly noteworthy.

I continue to emphasise the value of close cooperation between The CPS and the police. The experience of co-location to date is very encouraging.

I am also particularly interested in the outcome of the Witness Attendance Conference to be held later this month.

I was very pleased to meet those currently being sponsored by The CPS for the Legal Practice Course. Their determination and commitment is to be commended.

Please convey my appreciation to all the staff."

The Rt Hon the Lord Peter Goldsmith QC, Attorney General

Casework

We prosecute 88,000 cases in the magistrates' courts and 8,900 in the Crown Court. Some are straightforward, others are more complicated. Set out below are brief details of three of the more interesting cases finalised during this year.

R -v- Robert Coleshill

In a ground-breaking case, a paedophile has become the first person in the UK to be banned by a court from using Internet chat rooms.

The police investigation followed a complaint by a member of the public about the sexual nature of approaches made by an unknown person visiting various teen chat rooms. An officer from West Midlands Police Paedophile Unit, posing as a 13- year-old under the pseudonym Britney Boy, started using the chat rooms and was contacted by Coleshill.

Robert Coleshill was caught after sending sexually explicit messages and a webcam image of himself masturbating to the detective posing as the 13-yearold boy. Faced with issues such as gathering evidence without infringing Coleshill's rights to privacy under the Human Rights Act, and the need to avoid claims of entrapment, police consulted David Jeffery, special casework lawyer.

David, based at CPS Area HQ in Birmingham, stressed the need for the officer to conduct himself properly "on line" and also advised them of the charges he considered appropriate.

As a result of the investigation — the first of its type in the country — Coleshill pleaded guilty to four charges of attempting to incite an act of gross indecency with a child under the age of 16 and six charges of possessing indecent photographs of a child.

Sentencing him for six months on 18 January 2002 at Birmingham Crown court, Judge Alan Taylor made the country's first restraining order banning Coleshill from entering Internet chats rooms for two years. He was also put onto the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years.

Safer Roads

In a landmark conviction, a group of motorists who used roads near a shopping centre as a driving circuit have been fined for causing a public nuisance.

Police in Dudley acted after receiving hundreds of complaints from residents and market stallholders about the antics of young drivers who gathered at the town's huge Merry Hill shopping centre at night. Using roads serving and surrounding the shopping complex, the drivers cruised up and down continuously. The area is notorious for road accidents, including fatal crashes involving young motorists.

After consulting Rob Prosser, senior crown prosecutor based at Brierley Hill CJU, police set about obtaining video evidence. Officers kept watch on the Merry Hill circuit, logging the car registration plates and the number of times vehicles drove past their observation points. One driver clocked up an astonishing 300 miles in a single night's driving.

As a result of the operation nine people were charged with causing a public nuisance, a rarely used offence under common law. Two pleaded guilty, the others — six men and a woman, aged between 18 and 23 — denied the charge but were convicted at Dudley Magistrates' Court on 19 October 2001 after a threeday trial.

They were each fined £200, bound over for 12 months in the sum of £250 and ordered to pay £200 costs. The seven were warned by District Judge Richard Clancy that if they repeated the offences they could face custodial sentences.

The case has attracted the interest of several police force plagued by similar problems in their areas.

R -v- Dowen

Police in Willenhall praised the judicial system after a man accused of 66 serious offences appeared before Wolverhampton Crown Court within weeks of being arrested and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Carl Dowen, aged 29, from Walsall, appeared before the Court on 2 July after being arrested at the end of June by officers working on Operation Safer Streets II.

He was charged with six offences of robbery and two offences of taking vehicles without consent. He asked for a number of other offences, including robbery and theft from the person, to be taken into

consideration — bringing the overall total number of offences to 66.

Dowen committed the robberies by using stolen cars to drive onto pavements, targeting lone women and stealing their handbags. A number of other robberies involved handbag snatches using violence. Many of his victims were elderly, the oldest being 87 years.

Inspector Paul Lem from Willenhall OCU said, "To get a suspect charged with so many offences dealt with so quickly is extremely unusual and shows what we can achieve by working together.

"As well as being good news for the police and the courts, fast-tracking of robbery cases is good news for the victims, as it reduces the considerable pressure they are often under, with many cases being held up in the system for months".

R - v - Andrew Aston

Double killer Andrew Aston carried out a 90-day reign of terror against the elderly in Birmingham and the Black Country, which encompassed 28 robberies and two murders. He pretended to be a police officer and attacked the victims in their own homes. West Midlands Police's Murder Investigation Unit set up surveillance and this resulted in Aston being arrested in the home of one of his victims on 31 March 2001.

The investigation was vast due to the number of offences and large volumes of used and unused statements that were submitted to The CPS. There were Public Interest Immunity issues around the use of surveillance and also intelligence upon numerous other suspects. The defendant put forward his father as an alibi for some of the offences but Aston's father was called as part of the prosecution case and he informed the court that his son was not working with him on the days in question.

The trial lasted six weeks and on February 21 2002, Aston was sentenced to 26 life sentences, the sentence given by Mr Justice Butterfield is thought to be the most substantial single sentence handed out in a British courtroom.

Mr Justice Butterfield QC commended the work of The CPS Caseworker Julia Allso who was based at Birmingham TU.

About The Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service is the principal prosecution authority in England and Wales. We are responsible for advising the police on cases submitted by the police, preparing cases for court and the presentation of cases at court. The role of the Service is to prosecute cases firmly, fairly and effectively, when there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction, and when it is in the public interest to do so. We work in partnership with the police, the courts and other agencies throughout the criminal justice system.

In April 1999, following the Glidewell Review, The Crown Prosecution Service was reorganised into 42 Areas corresponding to the 43 police forces in England and Wales (London Area covers both City of London and Metropolitan Police Forces). Each Area is made up of a number of Trial Units (which deal with Crown Court cases) and Criminal Justice Units (which deal with cases in the magistrates' courts).

Each Area has its own Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP), they report to the Director of Public Prosecutions but remain accountable to the local community for their performance. The CCP is also responsible for developing effective relationships with other agencies in the criminal justice system.

The Head of The Crown Prosecution Service is the Director of Public Prosecution, Sir David Calvert- Smith QC. The Attorney General, The Rt Hon the Lord Peter Goldsmith QC who is responsible to Parliament for the Service, superintends the Director.

Where we fit in the Criminal Justice System

The Law Officers:

The Attorney General is assisted by the Solicitor General. The Attorney General has final responsibility for enforcing criminal law and superintends the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The Police:

They investigate crime and arrest or detain suspected offenders. Once a suspect is held they decide whether to caution them, take no further action, issue a fixed penalty notice — in the case of motoring offences — or charge them and send the papers to prosecuting authorities, mainly The CPS.

The Lord Chancellor 's Department:

The Lord Chancellor is head of the judiciary and responsible for the administration of the court system in England and Wales. This includes the magistrates' courts. The Home Office: Responsible for matters relating to law and order.

The Prison Service:

The Service is responsible for keeping in custody people on remand awaiting trial and those sentenced to imprisonment by the courts.

The National Probation Service:

The Service provides courts with advice and information on offenders to help sentencing decisions and implements community orders made by the courts.

This diagram identifies that the following organisations form the Criminal Justice System:

• Courts
• Prison Service
• Lord Chancellor's Department
• Home Office
• Police
• Crown Prosecution Service
• Probation Service
• Law Officers

The Code for Crown Prosecutors

The Director of Public Prosecutions is under a statutory duty to publish the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The key principles of the Code to be applied in every case are:

• Whether there is enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against each defendant on each charge; if so,
• Whether a prosecution is needed in the public interest.

The fourth edition of the Code was published in October 2000, and is available in 12 languages (see above),including the most commonly used community languages, and in Braille and on audiotape.The Crown Prosecution Service is a public authority for the purpose of the Human Rights Act 1998. In carry out their role, Crown Prosecutors must apply the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights in accordance with the Act.

Dealing with Complaints

We aim to deal with complaints sensitively, fairly and in confidence. If your complaint is justified we will apologise, try to put the matter right and take steps to ensure it does not happen again. We will try to reply to your complaint within three working days of receiving your letter. If we can't send you a full reply within that time, we will acknowledge receipt of your letter and aim tosend a full reply within 10 working days.

If you have a complaint about our handling of a case you should write to The CPS office, which originally dealt with it. Please include as much information as possible such as the defendant's name, the court where the case was heard, and any hearing dates and reference numbers you may have. Details of the local CPS WestMidlands Units can be found on the back of this report.

If you are not satisfied with replies you receive you should contact the Chief Crown Prosecutor at the address also on the back of this report. He will look into this complaint. If you are still not satisfied you can write to CPS Customer Service Unit, 50 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7EX — email: complaints@cps.gov.uk

Complaints that cannot be resolved locally are referred through this Unit to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

For further information:

CPS WEST MIDLANDS AREA

The CPS West Midlands Area Office is at Colmore Gate, 2 Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 2QA Telephone: 0121 262 1300 (switchboard) Fax: 0121 262 1500

The Chief Crown Prosecutor is David Blundell The Area Business Manager is Mike Grist The Area Community and Communications Officer is Vinny Bolina The Area Press and Publicity Officer is Lynn Willis

Questions or Complaints

These should be addressed to:

Chief Crown Prosecutor at the above address

Free publications about The CPS can be obtained from: Press and Publicity Officer at the above address www.cps.gov.uk.

Area Offices are:

Birmingham Trial Unit/Birmingham Criminal Justice Unit Colmore Gate, 2 Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 2QA Telephone No: 0121 262 1300

Eastern Trial Unit and Criminal Justice Units Group Friars House, Manor House Drive, Coventry CV1 2TE Telephone No: 02476 508400

Wolverhampton Trial Unit St Georges House, Lever Street, Wolverhampton WV2 1EZ Telephone No: 01902 872800

Black Country Group of Criminal Justice Units St Georges House, Lever Street, Wolverhampton WV2 1EZ Telephone No: 01902 872800.