CROWN PROSECUTION SERVICE

A documentary film-maker was hauled into court on a charge of stealing electricity worth 0.003p. By the time the ludicrous case was dropped, the bill to taxpayers was more than £5,000. Mark Guard had to appear at two separate hearings before the Crown Prosecution Service finally saw sense. Mr Guard, who makes documentaries about crime and the homeless, was filming squatters entering a disused building through an open window at 10pm.

A security sensor inside detected the movement and the alarm was triggered. The squatters fled but Mr Guard, a former electrician, decided to stay behind and turn off the alarm to save neighbouring families from the noise. To do so he had to turn on the electricity in the building for a few seconds, to give him light, and then turn it off. Nine police then arrived in response to the alarm. When Mr Guard told them what he had done, he was arrested and held in a cell for six hours before being charged.

At his first magistrates' court hearing, the film-maker pleaded not guilty and asked for the case to be tried at a crown court so a jury could decide. He said, "When I told the chairman of the bench I wanted a jury trial, he began to realise the ludicrous nature of the case. He asked why this case was going to a trial in the crown court at a cost of £200,000." He then had to appear again in front of Highbury Magistrates in North London, before the charge was dropped.

Experts estimate that the court hearings cost taxpayers £4,200. A night in police cells added £385 and the arrest operation around £600. Mr Guard said, "I thought I was acting in the public interest. It was late in the evening and I knew families would have struggled to get to sleep if I hadn't done something. I even offered to pay 1p to the energy company which supplies electricity to the house, but it's not bothered about collecting such a paltry sum."

He added, "I've been mugged three times and the police know who did it but they have never been able to prosecute. But on the night in question officers wasted no time in slapping handcuffs on me. I feel this is double standards. If the charges had not been dropped I would have fought all the way. Part of me is relieved that I can get back to making my documentary, but most of me is angry that I've been forced to go through all this."

Neither the squatters nor Mr Guard broke the law by entering the disused house in Camden, North London, because they did not force their way in. Mr Guard has been following and filming criminals and homeless people in London for two years. Using hidden cameras he has been able to capture drug deals and shop thefts as they happened. In 2006, Mr Guard made news when a building firm paid him £3.5million for a plot of land in Surrey he had bought 11 years earlier for just £1,000. (Source: Daily Mail, Aug/09)

Crown prosecutors are dropping tens of thousands of criminal cases each year despite having enough evidence to bring offenders to court. Last year they halted proceedings against more than 25,000 offenders, including thugs, vandals and shoplifters, because it was not in the "public interest" to continue.

Officials admit the vast majority of cases are stopped because prosecutors are "snowed under". Stopping trials in the "public interest" still counts as an offence "brought to justice", helping courts hit Government targets. A Crown Prosecution Service source said, "If a case starts to go badly, prosecutors may want to stop it so they can concentrate on another which they have a better chance of winning."

The CPS dropped 25,821 cases last year on "public interest" grounds. In each case there was enough evidence to charge the criminal, but prosecutors later decided a trial would not be appropriate. A CPS spokesman said, "Inevitably there will be occasions on which a case needs to be discontinued on public-interest grounds, but the number of cases is small compared with our overall caseload of over a million cases each year. There is no direct link between cases discontinued and pay." (Source: Daily Mail, Jan/08)

Around 1,800 defendants a year in London charged with serious offences including robbery and supplying heroin are set free by magistrates because the Crown Prosecution Service is not ready to go ahead with their committals on time. The disclosure comes in a report from the CPS's independent inspectorate, which concludes: "It is of major concern for the criminal justice system and victims in particular that cases are not being prosecuted to a proper conclusion." Cases can be reinstated but few are, the report says. Defendants over a three-month period had been charged with crimes including assault, robbery, burglary, supply and possession of hard drugs, theft and handling, indecent assault, blackmail and deception.

The inspectors found "disturbing levels of attrition of serious cases which were occurring through committals being discharged when they are not ready, and cases being dropped because of witnesses not attending court". In other parts of the country very few committals were discharged. Stephen Wooler, the chief inspector, said a plan of action "must address concerns about the handling of casework, in particular the lack of grip on cases and the high number which fail simply because the prosecution is not ready". The inspection of CPS London found "serious shortcomings in casework which were founded on weaknesses both in procedures and systems and in management".

Many issues could only be addressed by "a substantial development and strengthening of both senior and middle management, accompanied by some structural changes". The inspectors said that correspondence or material sent by police was not linked to files, and little was done to chase outstanding material, such as committal files from police. In some instances there were insufficient lawyers to send to police stations to review files, or cover courts in which new cases appeared. In many cases inspectors found the police were at fault for failing to supply a committal file or supplying it too late, or submitting a file lacking crucial evidence.

The inspectors say the numbers of discharged cases are thought to be increasing. At the time of the inspection earlier this year, CPS London was "in something of a crisis". More than 50 lawyers had left and staff had to be seconded from across the country. A large part of the advocacy in magistrates courts was being done by inexperienced barristers and solicitors in private practice. The situation was exacerbated because the area thought it had overspent its budget when it was underspent by £1m.

Kris Venkatasami, the national convenor for the CPS section of the FDA, the senior civil servants' union, said: "It was chaos, absolute crisis at the time. These are issues we've been highlighting for the last 18 months. We believe there should be a major investigation into how the area mishandled its budget. My members are doing their professional job but they're struggling because of appalling managerial error." A CPS spokeswoman said: "We accept the recommendations, which highlight some serious problems, though the inspectors do acknowledge the hard work of staff and good prosecution decisions. We will be producing a comprehensive action plan."

District Judge Jonathan Finestein blasted a decision to prosecute a boy of 10 before a court for allegedly calling a friend "Paki" and called on the police and Crown Prosecution Service to drop the case. Mr Finestein said, "I was repeatedly called fat at school. Does this amount to a criminal offence? This is political correctness gone mad, it's crazy. In the old days the headmaster would have got them both and given them a good clouting. He would have said they had behaved like idiots, given them the slipper or whatever he used, and they would have gone away to shake hands. This is how stupid the whole system is getting."

He added, "There are major crimes out there and the police don't bother to prosecute. If you get your car stolen it doesn't matter, but you get two kids falling out because of racist comments, this is nonsense." Police said, "We take all reports of crime seriously and remain totally opposed to racism in any form." Judith Elderkin, of the National Union of Teachers, said the judge was "a bit out of date". She said schools had to report racist incidents to the local education authority. "Racist abuse is not tolerated nowadays." The CPS would not comment. (Source: Daily Mirror, Apr/06)

The CPS has refused to prosecute anybody for the public violence and assault with a deadly weapon, captured on film and broadcast on satellite television, committed by members of a state-sponsored UAF mob against Nick Griffin at College Green in June last year. At least two clearly identifiable UAF supporters were filmed throwing darts, one of which struck a BNP security man, Stuart Freeman, in the chest. Despite the ample and crystal clear video and photographic evidence, the CPS has told the police that there is insufficient evidence to secure a prosecution.

Mr Griffin said, “The Westminster Serious Crimes Unit have been very thorough in their investigation and amassed an overwhelming case. It seems, however, in this case that the UAF, which is funded by the trade unions who are in turn funded by the Government, is apparently above the law. The video evidence shows members of the UAF crowd throwing darts at BNP people. If that does not constitute assault with a weapon, then nothing does."

He continued, “All this does is convince us even further that justice in Britain is terminal, murdered by decades of political correctness imposed by successive Tory and Labour regimes. The CPS decision is in effect an invitation to anti-democratic thugs to commit acts of serious violence in public, safe in the knowledge that even if they are filmed in flagrante delicto, they will be protected by the CPS."

He adde, “The decision will prove to the public that the establishment is ganging up on the BNP and is even prepared to condone acts of violence. We are convinced that this decision will backfire. Increasing numbers of the public have become aware of the insidious destruction of our nation and that the BNP offers the only solution to this madness.” (Source: BNP, Mar/10)

A video of the dart throwing can be seen here

The thug seen throwing the dart that struck a BNP member did not care who he hit when he threw that missile. He and his kind in the UAF say they are opposed to violence and prove it by trying to injure those who defend democracy and the British way of life.