London North
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the main prosecuting authority in England and Wales. In our daily operations we work in partnership with all agencies in the criminal justice system. We work especially closely with the police, although we are independent of them.
The CPS has 14 Areas across England and Wales and CPS London North Area is one of two Areas in the Greater London Area (CPS London South being the other). It covers most of the London boroughs north of the River Thames (excluding Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster). We prosecute cases investigated by the Metropolitan Police in these boroughs.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Jaswant Kaur Narwal is the head of CPS London North and is supported by three Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutors, Adele Kelly, DCCP for the London North Magistrates’ Court Team, Christian Meikle, DCCP for the Crown Court Unit and David Malone, who heads the Complex Casework Unit and Rape and Serious Sexual Offences teams and is DCCP for the London Homicide Team and London Crown Advocacy Team. Zeltia Carrera is the Area Business Manager and has responsibility for Business and Operational Delivery functions across the region.
We currently employ approximately 590 members of staff which consists of lawyers, paralegals and administrators. Our teams are based in offices near Victoria. We also have a small number of remote staff based in CPS offices in Cardiff.
The Area is supported by a Business Centre which houses a team of specialists in the fields of performance, finance, human resources, communications and inclusion.
Jaswant Kaur Narwal, Chief Crown Prosecutor
Jaswant became our Chief Crown Prosecutor in CPS London North in September 2023 and has overall responsibility for all our criminal prosecutions in most of the London boroughs north of the River Thames (excluding Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster).
Jaswant is the former Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Thames and Chiltern - a position she held since October 2018. Prior to joining CPS Thames and Chiltern, she was the Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS South East.
Jaswant is also the CPS national lead for 'honour'-based abuse, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, and she works with partners to raise awareness about these crimes and to increase prosecutions.
Jaswant has over 34 years’ service with the Crown Prosecution Service, joining the organisation in 1989. She qualified as a barrister in 1993 and spent much of her early career prosecuting in London. She then became head of the Old Bailey Trials Unit, handling homicide cases across London. She has also managed specialist police complaints, led a review of convictions in cases involving corrupt police officers, and handled large-scale public disorder cases.
In 2007, Jaswant was appointed Chief Crown Prosecutor for Lincolnshire and subsequently Chief Crown Prosecutor for Sussex in 2010. She then became Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for the South East Area, with responsibility for operational delivery and the digital working programme. Jaswant took up the national position of Deputy Head of the Central Fraud Division in 2013 and later Deputy Head of the Welfare, Rural and Health Division.
Adele Kelly, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor
Adele is the DCCP for the London North Magistrates’ Court Team and London Red Charging Team - a pan-London unit.
Christian Meikle, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor
Christian is the Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor with responsibility for the London North Crown Court team. He was called to the Bar in 1999. Having spent the first few years in Chambers he joined the CPS in 2003.
He has worked in three CPS Areas as well as CPS HQ, holding a wide range of lawyer, advocacy and management roles. He has also worked overseas as a CPS Criminal Justice Advisor advising foreign government departments on their criminal justice systems.
Christian is also a qualified project manager who has created and implemented a wealth of change projects for the CPS during his career. Having led the London South Crown Court, Complex Casework Unit and Rape and Serious Sexual Offences teams, he moved to the London North Crown Court team as Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor in late 2024.
David Malone, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor
David took up the appointment of Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor (‘DCCP’) for London South, with specific responsibility for Crown Court cases, in 2021. He moved to leading the Area's Complex Casework Unit and Rape and Serious Sexual Offences team in September 2024 and is now DCCP for the London Homicide Team and London Crown Advocacy Team, both pan-London units.
David was called to the Bar in 1998 and is a leading barrister with over 20 years’ successful practice at the self-employed Criminal Bar. He served as Head of Chambers before joining one of the leading criminal law sets in the country in 2013. David has provided advice and representation (both for the prosecution and defence) in serious and complex criminal cases. He is a Grade 4 criminal advocate (the highest CPS grade) and is approved to prosecute on the following CPS Specialist Panels: Counter Terrorism; Special Crime Group; Fraud and the Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) List. In addition, he has been appointed to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Prosecution List (Panel A), the highest SFO grade.
Immediately prior to taking up his first role in London South, David successfully served for two years as Deputy Head of the Specialist Fraud Division (SFD). In doing so, he was the first and only self-employed barrister to be seconded to a CPS Central Casework Division as a Deputy Head of Division. He was also the SFD National Lead for the National Crime Agency and the Metropolitan Police Service. In 2021, he won the Outstanding Leadership and Outstanding Innovation Awards for the SFD.
David has been commended by the General Council of the Bar for his pro bono work in the field of victims’ rights.
He is the current Chair of the CPS Social Mobility Working Group. In his own time, David volunteers as a School Governor for a state funded secondary school in South London. In the past, he has volunteered at HMP Brixton and for the Centrepoint Homeless Charity in London.
Zeltia Carrera, Area Business Manager
Our Magistrates’ Court Unit prosecutes offences of domestic abuse, assaults, criminal damage, minor public disorder incidents, all but the most serious traffic offences, possession of drugs, dangerous dog offences, offences of dishonesty and commercial burglaries. The list is not exhaustive but generally comprises of any offence where the maximum permitted sentence for each offence does not exceed six months imprisonment or one year if two or more relevant offences are to be considered.
The Crown Court Unit deals with cases such as attempted murder, robberies, serious assaults, dwelling house burglaries, complex fraud and the supply and trafficking of drugs.
The Homicide unit, which covers the whole of London, deals with murders and the most serious road traffic offences, especially those that result in a fatality. A separate Complex Casework Unit which covers the whole of London is aligned to the CPS London South Area.
The RASSO Unit is a dedicated and specialised team which prosecutes cases such as rape, serious sexual offences, child abuse, child sexual exploitation, honour based violence and Female Genital Mutilation. The staff on the unit all have a great deal of understanding of the sensitivities of prosecuting cases of this nature and how difficult and harrowing it can be for a victim from the first step of making a complaint to the police, through to giving evidence in a trial.
Working with You
CPS London North continues to engage with the diverse communities that we serve in order to ensure that we make this region a safer place to live, work and visit.
We acknowledge that public trust is measured against our ability to work with members of our local communities in key areas. To this end we have two community panels that work on a pan-London basis – one that focusses specifically on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and one that has a wider remit and will for instance look at cases involving hate crime.
Our aim is to inform, listen, work with and in turn, be informed by those living and working across north London.
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