Greater Manchester’s Police Chief Steve Watson is calling on the police police rather than independent prosecution lawyers, to have the power to charge suspects in most cases.
According to a report in the Guardian today Watson, along with the West Midlands,and West Yorkshire Chief Constables are warning of a deepening crisis in the justice system and argue that delays in charging suspects are leading to the guilty walking free and delayed justice, as victims and witnesses tire of long waits.
The three say that the Crown Prosecution Service should be stripped of having the sole power to authorise charges in most cases, helping to drag the justice system out of a worsening crisis. This would include for crimes such as domestic abuse, harassment, burglary, robbery, theft, knife crime, and violent crime.
“In an unprecedented intervention, the three police chiefs say: “The ability for the CPS to give timely charging advice (namely while the suspect is under arrest and in the cells) is broken; not because of anything the CPS has done, but because they do not have the resources or the people to do what they used to.”
“We have tried to fix it together over the last two years, but the plasters are not sticking and things are getting worse. So for the sake of victims, witnesses and all in the criminal justice system, we need to replace it now, by restoring to the police the ability to charge most offences whilst suspects are in the cells.”
