CPS hit by £20k costs over 'total inaction' on charging decision

The Crown Prosecution Service has been ordered to pay £20,000 in costs after being criticised by the High Court for months of 'complete silence' following judicial review proceedings.

In The Queen (on the application of RA) and The Director of Public Prosecutions, published last week, Mr Justice Fraser said the CPS 'took a wholly inactive stance to RA's application for many months, for no good reason whatsoever'.

RA, chief executive of a company in the healthcare sector, was subject to an investigation concerning an alleged criminal conspiracy in which relevant authorities suspected he may be involved. The investigation commenced in 2013 and RA was interviewed under caution by HM Revenue & Customs.

The judgment states that RA began pressing the director of public prosecutions (DPP) in March 2014. In July 2015, he issued judicial review proceedings to progress matters.

In August 2015, the DPP offered an undertaking to the High Court that a charging decision would be made by 30 November 2015. On 27 November 2015 the CPS decided that RA would not be charged. The judgment states that RA's defence in the investigation was that he had been engaged in wholly legitimate business activities.

The CPS's charging decision meant the substantive element of the JR proceedings fell away.

Following enquiries about the status of the case from the Administrative Court Office (ACO), which deals with JR applications, RA said in January 2016 that he was now acting as a litigant in person and wished to apply for his costs. However, a letter from the ACO to the specialist fraud division at the CPS went unanswered.

'There was a period of complete silence from the relevant department, that period being in excess of 13 months,' the judge said. 'RA on the other hand, acting for himself, was rather more efficient (not that higher efficiency by comparison was difficult, given the inaction at the CPS).'

In October 2016 the High Court awarded RA £20,000 in costs. A copy of the order was sent to the CPS by RA's personal assistant.

'Receipt of that order by the specialist fraud unit led to a rather more dramatic response - and indeed, a response at last, after such a prolonged period of silence - and those on the receiving end at the CPS finally sprang into action', the judge said.

He added: 'The irony in this case is that the litigant in person, RA, broadly followed exactly what was expected, and progressed his application for costs properly; those acting for the DPP did not.

'It should also be noted that the procedures in question are not arcane and overly technical requirements of nineteenth-century Chancery law. Simply responding either to applications or even merely letters does not impose an onerous burden upon anyone, legally qualified or not.'

Asked by the DPP to revoke or vary the October 2016 order, Fraser said there was 'simply no good explanation available for the failure by the DPP, through those at the CPS who were supposed to be acting on her behalf in the judicial review proceedings, to take any substantive or procedural steps in the action whatsoever between September 2015 and October 2016'.

He said the inaction 'was contrary to the duty imposed upon the DPP as a party to the litigation, to be cooperative and to help the court to further the overriding objective'.

The judge cautioned however that his judgment 'should not be taken as any form of encouragement' to other litigants to issue JR proceedings against the DPP expecting or hoping that such costs orders will routinely follow.

The CPS has been approached for comment.

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CPS hit by £20k costs over 'total inaction' on charging decision