Victims' Right to Review Data 2020-2021
This publication details the outcomes of Victims' Right to Review decisions in 2020-2021. Also available in Excel and PDF format.
Victims Right to Review Outcomes
April 2020 to March 2021
| Principal Offence Category | Total VRR Requests Received | Original Decisions Overturned at Stage One | Original Decisions Overturned at Stage Two | Total Original Decisions Overturned | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Homicide | 43 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| B | Offences against the person | 790 | 96 | 26 | 122 |
| C | Sexual offences | 367 | 29 | 15 | 44 |
| D | Burglary | 30 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| E | Robbery | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| F | Theft and handling | 88 | 11 | 1 | 12 |
| G | Fraud and forgery | 57 | 11 | 1 | 2 |
| H | Criminal damage | 75 | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| I | Drug offences | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| J | Public order offences | 65 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| L | Motoring offences | 30 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| K | All other offences (excluding motoring) | 111 | 11 | 4 | 15 |
| No Principal Offence Category | 298 | 41 | 10 | 51 | |
| Total | 1,961 | 206 | 64 | 270 |
Notes
In 2020-21 the CPS made a pre-charge legal decision on 190,149 suspects and prosecuted 370,415 defendants, not all prosecuted defendants are subject to a CPS pre-charge decision; the Police charge approximately 65% of cases and the CPS 35%.
The VRR scheme is a two-stage process where requests can be reviewed by either local offices or a specialist Unit within HQ. In the first instance, that decision is reviewed by a manager in the local area. If he or she overturns the original decision, and if the victim so requests, the case may be further reviewed by the CPS Appeals and Review Unit (ARU). The ARU is a national CPS unit staffed with experienced specialist lawyers who conduct a fresh independent review of the evidence in every case referred to them. If an ARU lawyer decides that the original decision was wrong, and a prosecution is required to maintain confidence in the Criminal Justice System, that original decision will be overturned and proceedings reinstituted. The figures provided in the table represent all overturned decisions where the original decision was found to be wrong regardless of which stage the final decision was made.
The CPS operates both Feedback and Complaints schemes to deal with concerns about legal decisions which do not fall within the scope of the VRR scheme. The CPS does not collect data which constitutes official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. This data has been drawn from the CPS’s administrative IT systems, which (as with any large scale recording system) is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the CPS.