Our privately paying client was accused of various offences by the council. They were adamant and intending to prosecute our client before the Magistrates Court. Unfortunately, the prosecution were never prepared with any documents and certainly never disclosed any documents under section 3 and 7 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
However, the Case Management Order has recorded their mismanagement of the case file; no documents were produced in the previous two wasted hearings. It was only just the day before the trial that the prosecution served all the documents excluding witness statements. This litigation conduct was brought before the court’s attention by Mr Patel and in his view he had no instructions to defend on the basis of those documents that are lately served.
The Prosecuting Barrister did not want the court to reject the entire evidence against the Defendant.
Once again, Mr Patel requested court to invoke section 19 of the Prosecution of the Offences Act 1985 against the prosecution. Mr Patel was familiar with the case law of R (on the application of Singh) v Ealing Magistrates Court [2014] EWHC 1443 (Admin) (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2014/1443.html). Finally, Mr Patel has also proven to everyone in the court that the prosecution failed to serve their witness statements of which they then did serve on the date of trial before the Magistrates Court.
After going through the whole court file, legal and factual submissions, and the relevant legislation including section 78 of the PACE Act 1984 with the help of legal advisor, the court agreed to consider evidence which should be presented at the trial by the prosecution and pay Defendant’s wasted costs of the wasted hearing for not allowing the Defendant to prepare their defence and file a defence statement. In the court’s view, the prosecution were scandalous.
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