BIJ Story: Crown Prosecution Service criticised for ‘wilful, calculated and prolonged disobedience’ in trial

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that cuts in staffing and funding at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is resulting in prosecutions being thrown out of court.

January 14, 2014 by Maeve McClenaghan (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

The Crown Prosecution Service has once again come under fire by a top judge for failing to prepare properly for a serious trial, and for citing financial constraints as the reason for that failure.

The judge told the court that the case ‘raises serious issues about the practice of the CPS in cases where complex evidence is involved,’ and called the CPS’s actions ‘completely unacceptable’.

Recently published court records reveal that judge Peter Murphy was forced to throw out a trial for conspiracy to supply class A drugs just two days in to proceedings, after the CPS failed to prepare properly, claiming that submitting certain evidence would have a negative financial impact.

The judge’s comments are part of growing criticism of the CPS, as uncovered by the Bureau last year.

A six month investigation by the Bureau found that budget cuts had led to the CPS losing 23% of its barristers (202), 22% of its solicitors (518) and 27% (296) of its higher court advocates.

That loss in staff correlated with an increase in the rate at which homicide trials failed because the CPS provided insufficient or no evidence after a not guilty plea. This was equivalent to one in twenty homicide cases and represented a rise of 50% compared with 2010. The rate at which the CPS offers ‘no evidence’ had also risen for burglary, robbery, fraud and forgery, and criminal damage trials.

Related article: New figures reveal the CPS has lost more than 20% of its legal teams

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Graphs at a glance: Who's afraid of affordable housing in London? London councils take money from developers in lieu of affordable houses.

George Osborne’s championing a rise in the minimum wage is like the Big Bad Wolf championing better straw for little pigs' houses. Will his earnest “little pig, little pig, we’re all in it together!” convince us he is not a heartless cad after all? Or will we suspect the motivation for his sudden change of mind on this minimum pay increase? On the 10^th January 2014 Osborne said it would be self defeating and job destroying, then on 16^th January 2014 he said with a purr

"I want to make sure we are all in it together, as part of the recovery, which is why I want to see above-inflation increases in the minimum wage, precisely because the British economy can now afford that."

Did a Special Adviser remind him about elections? This appeal from Osborne for a higher minimum wage is of course not aimed at winning over people on minimum wages. George has already huffed and puffed and blown all their housing benefits down. This is aimed at those of us who are beginning to feel a little C-sick over cuts to pensions, pay, benefits, jobs and public services squarely aimed at the less well off. As Mervyn King said when he was Governor of the Bank of England

"The price of this financial crisis is being borne by people who absolutely did not cause it…..Now is the period when the cost is being paid, I'm surprised that the degree of public anger has not been greater than it has."

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, in evidence to the UK Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee, March 2011.

Of course, it is unfair of us to compare Osborne to the big bad wolf. Let me say that now before the complaints come tweeting in from wolf lovers across the globe. All the wolf wanted was a meal, while Conservative Party policy is after much more than that.

Tory policies on benefits caps and bedroom tax seem designed to drive unsuitable people from suitable areas. According to Shelter, the housing charity, the way people are kept below the overall benefits cap is cutting housing benefit.

“Housing benefit will be reduced to prevent the total benefits received going above these limits.”

The effect of which is to push them out of their homes.

However, it is not enough to drive away all the unsuitable people from the suitable places. What about getting rid of the unsuitable properties? A report by Westminster Council shows the difference in expectations is between the well-heeled and the down-at-heel when it comes to the size of their gaffs. 

The Westminster report states a ‘Social’ 2 bedroom flat is 750 square feet, while a private ‘Society’ 2 bedroom flat is 1,200 square feet. A ‘Social’ five bedroom house, at 1,760 square feet, is smaller than a ‘Society’ three bedroom flat. And you can fit twenty one ‘Social’ one bedroom flats into a single ‘Society’ five bedroom house.

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Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals scale of UK housing crisis

[UPDATED Dec 2016] The UK spent £3.5bn on temporary housing for the homeless in the last 5 years. That's 40% up from the £2bn spent over 4 years, the available figure when this article was first published in 2013.

By The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The UK has spent almost £2bn housing vulnerable homeless families in short-term temporary accommodation, according to new research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which demonstrates the dramatic scale of Britain’s housing crisis.

Rising private rents, a shortage of affordable housing and benefit cuts have forced local authorities, particularly in London, to place increasing numbers of households into bed and breakfast accommodation, hostels and shelters.

With the number of houses built in Britain falling to new lows, according to figures released last week, a four-month study by the Bureau drawing on local authority disclosures, has revealed that £1.88bn – enough to build 72,000 homes in London – has gone on renting temporary accommodation in 12 of Britain’s biggest cities over the past four years.

Campaigners have said welfare changes will exacerbate the problem. Official figures show that in London alone 7,000 families dependent on benefits stand to lose more than £100 a week under the ­benefit cap, and many are expected to become homeless as a result.

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How lobbying (probably) works: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

By The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Following four months of research the BIJ's financial lobby team gained a rare insight into lobbying's inner workings. But what does lobbying look like? The video shows the wheeling and dealing as it happens. Is it fair? Is it democratic? You decide.

With a £93m lobbying war chest and cosy relationships with regulators and members of parliament this is a powerful force. 

See the data, read the methodology, and pore over the evidence the Bureau has amassed of the size and scale of the financial services lobbying machine...

• Revealed: The £93m City lobby machine 
• Streets paved with gold: The council (City of London) that works for banks 
• Analysis: Political donations by companies hit shareholder returns 
• Government’s new lobbying proposals slated by MPs
• How the Bureau calculated the size of the finance lobby
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Opinion: Bailed-out banks facilitate $21tn offshore cash hoard

By Nick Mathiason, Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Investigative economist James Henry exhaustively trawled through financial information held by the IMF, World Bank, Bank for International Settlements, central banks and national treasuries to come up with the most definitive report ever written on the super-rich and offshore wealth.

Henry’s Price of Offshore Revisited report, commissioned by Tax Justice Network (TJN), shows:

• between $21 trillion and $32 trillion of financial assets is owned by High Net Worth Individuals in tax havens. This does not include real estate, art or jewels.
• a conservative 3% return on that $21tn taxed at 30% would generate $189bn – a figure easily eclipsing what OECD industrialised nations spend on overseas development aid.
• the top 50 private banks collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients, including their trusts. This is up from $5.4tn in 2005.
• fewer than 10 million members of the global super-rich have amassed a $21tn offshore fortune. Of these, less than 100,000 people worldwide own $9.8tn of wealth held offshore.

Accompanying the Price of Offshore Revisited is a separate paper [co-written by this author]. It reveals that data used by individual countries to assess the gap between rich and poor is inaccurate. And as a result, inequality is far more extreme than policymakers realise.

This is because economists calculating inequality fail to include the vast majority of offshore cash in their findings. So the wealthy are far better off than the studies suggest.

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Tax havens boost their lobbying efforts in the UK and Brussels

by Melanie Newman, Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have been boosting their lobbying strength in the UK and Brussels in recent years amidst growing criticism of tax havens.

NGOs such as Christian Aid have argued that the Territories’ image as tax havens puts them at ‘serious reputational risk’ and if they continue with their current policies ‘then their international profile as facilitators of corruptions and tax evasion will increase’.

Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have also come under fire, most recently from Labour leader Ed Miliband, who said the Dependencies must reveal the identities of tax evaders with money hidden on the islands.

‘I wouldn’t describe Bermuda as a tax haven. I’d describe Bermuda as being a very well run country that is able to have low taxes because it’s got a very strong economy.’ 
Henry Bellingham, Conservative Minister for Overseas Territories

In an attempt to counter such attacks, these offshore jurisdictions have been ramping up their PR and lobbying endeavours. They have also been lobbying in Brussels on European financial regulation.

Cayman Islands 
One recent example of this stepping up of ‘reputation management’, as revealed by the Bureau this week, was the hire of Lord Blencathra by the Cayman Islands as its UK representative.  Appointed in November 2011, his remit was to lobby in Westminster and Brussels and to fight off attacks on ‘tax neutral jurisdictions’. He told a press conference the financial services industry had to ‘justify its existence’ and that European financial regulation posed a threat to the Islands.

The Islands’ financial services industry lobbyist, Cayman Finance, has been represented separately by PR firm Media House International since April 2009. Chairman Jack Irvine is regularly quoted in the island press attacking critics of tax havens such as the Tax Justice Network and Labour MP John Cryer.

Media House has also employed Lord Blencathra as a public affairs consultant since 2008, though the peer told the Bureau his work for the firm did not involve the Caymans.

Bermuda
Business Bermuda, an organisation working with Bermuda-resident companies and the government, has also made moves to deflect criticism.  It hired financial PR and lobby firm Pelham Bell Pottinger in February 2011 with a remit to ‘develop and promote Bermuda internationally as the jurisdiction of choice’.

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