DECISIONS TO PROSECUTE

December 14, 2018

A member of a group under police surveillance who had entered into a sexual relationship with an undercover police officer was unable to establish that her lack of knowledge as to the officer’s true identity vitiated her consent to sexual relations within the meaning of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.74. There was no justification for extending the common law position as contended for by the claimant, namely that the matter to which the deception related had to be sufficiently serious in objective terms as to be capable of being regarded as relevant to a woman’s decision-making and that, subjectively, the deception went to a matter which the woman regarded as critical or fundamental to her decision-making.

April 30, 2018

A prosecutor’s decision not to charge a man with the rape of a woman with learning difficulties was not irrational. The circumstances of the man’s acquittal some years earlier on charges of sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder impeding choice were such that the prosecutor had been right to conclude that the man would be able to establish that a second prosecution was an abuse of process.

October 13, 2015

The court considered the proper approach to the Victims’ Right to Review Guidance of CPS decisions and to claims made in respect of decisions to charge where the original decision was not to charge.

June 23, 2015

The Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service had not erred in making a decision not to prosecute an alleged rape of a 14-year-old boy with moderate learning difficulties; there was a clear factual basis for the finding that there were insufficient grounds to mount a prosecution.

November 25, 2014

A decision to prosecute a 10-year-old boy for sexual offences committed against a younger boy was not irrational, nor had there been a failure by the CPS to follow its settled policy on the prosecution of young offenders.

November 20, 2006

It was not for the courts to assess the reasons behind the prosecution’s decision to charge an individual under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.8 rather than s.5 or s.9 and, in the circumstances, a sentence of five years’ imprisonment imposed on the individual was not manifestly excessive.

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