Police should be able to charge most offences, says Chief

27 February 2023

West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford.

West Midlands Police Federation is backing calls for officers to be allowed to charge suspects in more cases in a bid to reduce workload on members and ensure speedier justice for victims.

The Force’s Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, has joined his counterparts at West Yorkshire Police and Greater Manchester Police to urge a complete overhaul of the criminal justice system.

They said: “If something is broken, then we should fix it.  If we can’t fix it, then we should replace it. 

“The ability for the Crown Prosecution System (CPS)  to give timely charging advice - namely while the suspect is under arrest and in the cells - is broken; not because of anything the CPS has done, but because they do not have the resources or the people to do what they used to. 

“We have tried to fix it together over the last two years but the plasters are not sticking and things are getting worse.  

“So for the sake of victims, witnesses and all in the criminal justice system, we need to replace it now by restoring to the police the ability to charge most offences while suspects are in the cells.” 

Jason Dooley, a full-time West Midlands Police Federation rep, said the branch was in full support of the chief constables’ position.

He said the existing system of referring most cases to the CPS led to inevitable delays which was unfair on victims, alleged suspects and investigating officers who were becoming bogged down in  mountains of paperwork.

“As things stand, we are repeating ourselves too much and doing a lot of unnecessary work to satisfy the CPS,” he said.

“Sometimes officers are spending seven or eight hours putting a file together and are then told something’s missing or not quite right and call no further action.”

Jason also said some cases had to be referred to the overstretched CPS when an instant decision on charging could be made at the station.

“Any racially-aggravated offences where an officer has been racially abused has to go to the CPS no matter what,” he said.

“Even if the abuse is captured on bodycam and there is overwhelming evidence - evidence from a police officer who is classed as a credible witness in court - it has to be sent to the CPS which is crazy because we could make a decision there and then.”

Jason said once a case was handed to the CPS it could take several months before the matter was even considered for an initial court date.

He said officers then had to explain to victims and witnesses that a suspect had been released  “under investigation” or “on bail”.

“That is simply not fair on the victim or the alleged suspect because neither want it hanging over them for months on end,” said Jason.

“And, of course, while it is being looked at by the CPS, the police officer takes on more cases, paperwork piles up, mistakes get made, stress levels rise, productivity goes down and wellbeing starts to suffer.”

Jason said some complicated cases clearly needed the supervision of the CPS but suggested custody sergeants were more often than not in a much better position to make decisions on straightforward cases where there was little doubt what the outcome would be.

He said: “We are not saying this would work on every case and I think there probably has to be some training and additional resourcing around it but the Police Federation is 100 per cent behind the Chief on this.”

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Mr Guildford and his colleagues called for a whole-system review of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) but urged immediate action to tackle the growing crisis.

They said: “We would submit that the answer is simple.  The CPS are unable and are likely always to be unable to make charging decisions whilst the suspect is in the cells.  

“So the Director of Public Prosecutions just needs to give the right back to the police to make charging decisions there and then in far more cases: domestic abuse, harassment, burglary, robbery, theft, knife crime, violent crime.  

“We used to do this, officers want it, victims want it, defence lawyers want it, and we are sure the courts do too but the system keeps saying no. 

“We are trying to help free up CPS and partner agency work to do what they should be doing – prosecuting, not administration.”

The chief constables said allowing the police to charge more offences would give greater confidence to victims and witnesses, enable files and prosecution cases to be built more quickly and lead to swifter justice.

“We’ve done it before, and we can easily do it again.  In this case, returning to the old ways of doing things represents a good example of a return to common sense policing,” they said.