A major overhaul of private prosecutions in the wake of the “catastrophic failures” of the Post Office and Single Justice Procedure scandals has been announced by the government.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters across the country were taken through the courts by the Post Office after being wrongly suspected of fraud and theft at the branches they managed, in the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.
The courts were then rocked by a second scandal involving the Single Justice Procedure (SJP), a secretive system which allows magistrates to convict and sentence defendants for low-level offences behind-closed-doors.
The Standard’s long-running investigation into the realities of the SJP system laid bare an avalanche of convictions which were harsh, not in the public interest, or in some cases entirely unlawful.
Defendants with dementia have been convicted of not paying bills on time, people with severe mental health problems have ended up with a criminal record for not keeping up with TV Licence payments, and children have been unlawfully prosecuted and convicted.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Justice revealed the details of a planned shake-up of private prosecutions in the courts of England and Wales.
A two-month consultation will look at a shopping list of proposals aimed at restoring public faith in criminal justice.
“Recent catastrophic failures in private prosecutions have highlighted that our current system is open to abuse”, said Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood.
“That cannot be allowed to continue.
“We will listen carefully to the feedback from this consultation and develop stronger safeguards for the public to restore confidence in our justice system.”
Under the plans, prosecuting bodies – such as rail firms, DVLA, the Post Office, TV Licensing, and Transport for London – would have to sign up to a code of practice and be subjected to mandatory inspections.
The prosecutors could be placed under an obligation to “fully consider” if a case is in the public interest, bringing them in line with tests already carried out by the public-funded Crown Prosecution Service.
In the Post Office scandal, the organisation was both the alleged victim of thefts and the body bringing a prosecution to court, creating a significant conflict of interest. A code of practice would enforce a separation of the two roles within the same organisation.
Prosecutions were brought against sub-postmasters with heavy reliance on the Horizon accounting system, which the defendants were told was infallible. Yet it is now known the computer system was riddled with bugs and defects, and people within the Post Office knew of the problems but persisted with the criminal cases. Some sub-postmasters were jailed as a result, and some even lost their lives.
In the Single Justice Procedure, The Standard’s investigation analysed hundreds of criminal cases brought against people around the country for not paying for a TV licence or falling behind on car tax and insurance bills.
It was revealed mitigation letters put forward by defendants in the fast-track SJP system are routinely not read by prosecuting bodies, despite sometimes containing vital new information on the circumstances of an offence taking place. Often, the cases analysed had mitigation which raised significant questions as to whether the prosecution was still in the public interest, yet they were not withdrawn prior to conviction.
Both DVLA and TV Licensing say they look at mitigation letters which are specifically referred to them by the court, but do not see the material if there is no referral or it is not sent to them directly by defendants.
'A criminal record over £4'
David Oldham, a rigging engineer from Basildon in Essex, bought a birthday surprise of a new motorbike for his daughter.
But thanks to a slip-up on the paperwork, he failed to pay £4.17 to the DVLA and then found himself being prosecuted through the Single Justice Procedure.
Not only is he frustrated with the way the system operated, he worries about the long-term implications of a criminal conviction over such a relatively minor offence.
“It’s stupid - I couldn’t believe it. I’ve now become a criminal over £4”, he said.
David had never been prosecuted through the SJP before he received a letter in October 2024 from the DVLA, accusing him of being the keeper of an unlicensed vehicle between April 1 and May 11, 2024.
He bought the Blueroc motorbike for his daughter’s birthday and hid it away in a lock-up until the big day, a first vehicle that she could ride on their private land.
The 52-year-old father-of-three says it slipped his mind that he needed to get a Statutory Off-Road Notification (SORN) for the bike, and realised the mistake only when an initial letter arrived from the DVLA. He immediately went online to correct the error.
“The vehicle was never insured to be used on the road and was never used on the road”, he told the court.
He believed that would be the end of the matter, but in October a notice of intended prosecution arrived in the post.
“I thought what a pathetic waste of your time and my time, over a few quid because I didn’t register it”, he said. “I do not feel that all this time and money should be wasted on such a trivial offence.
“The DVLA could have just sent me a bill for the £4.17 with some interest. I would have been happy and apologetic paying. This seems a bit much and a complete waste of the court’s valuable time.
“I am sure that there are far more appropriate uses of our tax money than making criminals of nice people who did make a silly mistake.”
David told The Standard he felt the SJP process – dealt with entirely in written correspondence - treated him as “guilty until proven innocent”, with no option to negotiate with the DVLA to avoid a conviction.
Due to the fast-track nature of the court process, the DVLA likely did not read his letter of mitigation, explaining the mistake he had made and his willingness to settle out of court.
He works in the entertainment industry, with regular trips to the US, and fears for the impact of a conviction on his applications for visa. “It’s a very important issue to me, and all over £4”, he said.
As for the motorbike, David says the birthday present for his daughter is tainted, and she is left with the sad feeling “daddy’s got a criminal record from it”.
The government’s consultation will suggest a new requirement for SJP prosecutors to “engage with the defendant and assess their vulnerability before commencing a prosecution”, and to also read all letters of mitigation sent to the court before a case is finally dealt with by a magistrate.
This reform - if implemented - would be a major shift in a court system which has been dubbed “conveyor belt justice” by critics because of the perceived speed that convictions are handed out. The previous Conservative government steadyfastly defended the SJP system, in spite of the growing bank of evidence of failings.
Courts Minister Sarah Sackman KC called the consultation the “first step in protecting the public from unfair prosecutions and will help rebuild confidence in our justice system”.
“Our justice system is among the best in the world, built on strong foundations of fairness and transparency. But it is not infallible, and when things do go wrong, it can be catastrophic.
“That was made painfully clear to the hundreds of sub post-masters who were wrongly convicted following prosecution by a private prosecutor. Rightly deemed one of the worst miscarriages of justice in our country’s legal history, it is concerning that the unacceptable behaviour of the Post Office went undetected for so long.
“Whilst private prosecutions have an important role to play, we have seen examples of unregulated prosecutors bringing cases which are not in the public interest including through the Single Justice Procedure”, pointing to the case of a mother whose baby died and then she was prosecuted for being late renewing her car insurance.
“People’s frustration at senseless prosecutions is exacerbated as they waste vital court resources.”
The consultation will also look at the introduction of private prosecutors having to compile and publish data on the numbers of cases they bring to court.
The consultation is set to run until May 8.
At the same time, the Office for Rail and Road will deliver its findings from a review into train operators practices for tackling fare evasion, including the use of criminal prosecutions.
Over the last six months, tens of thousands of fare evasion convictions have been overturned at Westminster magistrates court after it was revealed eight train operators had unlawfully used SJP to bring the cases to court. The Standard has also found evidence-free prosecutions from at least one train company.
Separately the government has been considering open justice reforms for more than a year, after a major consultation on ways to open up the courts to public and media scrutiny. A long-standing criticism of SJP has been it is closed off to the public with decisions being made effectively in secret.
