Douglas Carswell

Crown Prosecution Service: unaccountable and useless?

Yesterday, the man who presides over possibly the most monumentally ineffective part of our criminal justice system, CPS chief Keir Starmer, sent me an email. 

Today, I sent him my reply;

From: CARSWELL, Douglas
Sent: 24 September 2009 09:34
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: RE: Message from Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions- CPS Interim Policy on Assisted Suicide

Dear Mr Starmer,

Unlike Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who instructed you to issue new guidelines on assisted suicide, I have no settled opinion on the subject.  

What I do know for certain is that on two occasions when proposals to change the law have been presented to Parliament, they have been rejected.  Lord Joffe's Euthanasia Bill was rejected by the upper House.  This summer, Lord Falconer's initiative to lift the threat of prosecution met a similar fate.

I also understand that it is the view of both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that there should be no change in the law.

Please can you explain why, given that Parliament has specifically rejected such a change, your consultation regarding guidance opens the possibility of such a change taking effect?

If your consultation does lead to a change in the law on assisted suicides, it will not have been done by democratic means, but by judicial activism. ....

I look forward to hearing from you.

Douglas Carswell MP

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Thanks to CPS incompetence, 7% of cases it handled have been abandoned “in error”. The number of wrong-doers aged 14-18 escaping justice has risen as prosecutions have fallen by more than half.

Remember New York public prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani; Only when public prosecutors are made accountable to the public, are we going to get a criminal justice system that’s on our side. 

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