Coronavirus review findings, March-August 2021
|News
The cumulative findings of the CPS review for completed prosecutions between March 2020 and August 2021 under the Coronavirus Act and Health Protection Regulations are detailed in the table below.
| Health Protection Regulations: Total (since March 2020) | Coronavirus Act: Total (since March 2020) | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of cases finalised | 2,098 | 295 |
| Number of finalised cases incorrectly charged | 445 | 295 |
| Withdrawn | 349 | 240 |
| Returned to CPS local Areas | 71 | 50 |
| Not guilty | 8 | 0 |
| Other | 17 | 5 |
As summary-only offences, the vast majority were charged by police.
Gregor McGill, CPS Director of Legal Services, said: “We remain committed to reviewing all of these cases for as long as necessary to ensure the right people are charged with the right offences.”
Notes to editors
- The CPS is manually reviewing all finalised prosecutions - i.e. where the case has been sentenced or proceedings stopped - for all cases under the Coronavirus Act and every case where a defendant has pleaded not guilty under the Regulations.
- CPS management information is derived from the CPS case management system, and as with any large-scale recording system, data are subject to possible errors in entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded and quality assured by the CPS. This means that cumulative figures may not always match the sum of historic monthly published figures.
- Our data cover the number of offences rather than individual defendants. Official criminal justice outcome statistics are kept by the Ministry of Justice.