A BACKBENCH MHK has accused the prosecutions division in the Attorney General’s chambers of being in ‘total disarray’.
John Houghton (Douglas North) claims the Attorney General’s chambers is ‘badly organised’ and he says victims, witnesses, defendants, the police and the taxpayers are all losing out as a result.
In Tynwald today (Tuesday), he was due to ask Chief Minister Allan Bell MHK what actions he was proposing to take to ‘improve the diminished standards of prosecutions’.
But he subsequently withdrew the question in the light of reassurances he said he had been given by Chief Minister Allan Bell.
He told the Examiner: ‘Justice is not being done – and this lies at the door of the Attorney General’s chambers. It’s in complete disarray and I’m not going to allow it to go on any longer. Something has to be done about it. I’m so angry about this.’
Mr Houghton said problems could be traced back to June 2009, when responsibility for conducting prosecutions in the summary courts was transferred from the police to the Attorney General’s chambers. Since then, he claimed, there had been many examples of cases before the High Bailiff being delayed or charges being withdrawn at the 11th hour.
The MHK said cases were delayed or pulled altogether because prosecutors were ‘ill prepared’, adding: ‘They were not ready to proceed because they had not done their homework.’
In other cases, he claimed, serious charges had been reduced to relatively minor ones. He said the delays were costing the taxpayer in additional legal aid, lost court time and costs awarded against the Crown. ‘Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being wasted in legal aid,’ he said.
Victims and witnesses were left waiting to give evidence, he said, and defendants, too, were left in limbo because their defence advocates were not being informed about changes to charges.
The Douglas North MHK said the police were also frustrated by having to wait on a decision by the Attorney General’s chambers over what offence a suspect should be charged with.
He rejected the suggestion that the Attorney General’s team was simply overstretched and blamed the problems on the chambers being ‘badly organised’.
Mr Houghton called for a return to the old system of the police prosecuting in the summary court, and he said that if he was not satisfied that action was being taken, he would table a motion for debate on the issue at a subsequent sitting of Tynwald.
In a judgment last year, former Deputy High Bailiff Alastair Montgomerie revealed that there were growing concerns among defence advocates about cases being prevented from being tried summarily rather than in the higher court.
He said there had been a ‘long line of cases’ where adjournments had been caused by the failure of the Attorney General’s chambers to adhere to a court order, resulting not only in ‘considerable inconvenience but also in wasting substantial time and public money’.
Director of prosecutions Stuart Neale told iomtoday it was not appropriate to comment ahead of the question being asked in Tynwald.
