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LAW | COMMENT

Sharp fall in criminal prosecutions shames our country

Budget cuts have denied justice to thousands and undermined confidence in the system

The Times

The number of cases brought to court by the Crown Prosecution Service has dropped from 894,791 in 2011-12 to 494,811, according to figures released last week.

This staggering 45 per cent fall is not the result of a drop in reported crime, far from it. This figure represents as many as 400,000 crimes where victims have been let down by the justice system without their cases even coming to court.

One would be hard-pressed to find a crown court judge who had seen a burglary case in recent years. And that means that hundreds of thousands of people will have lost faith in the system. The damage to public confidence hardly bears thinking about and should be a source of shame for all politicians who