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Prosecutors are performing worse in London than in the rest of the country because of a “lack of grip” on cases which risks letting offenders escape justice, an official watchdog warned today.

In a report, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate said that delays in assessing important evidence, the failure of prosecutors to turn up at court and the late disclosure of documents to defence lawyers were among the problems which undermined cases.

It said that such “failings” meant that despite some improvements, London prosecutors were “still behind” national standards, with lower conviction rates at both magistrates and crown court.

Examples include a 63.3 per cent success rate for cases involving violence against women, which remains below the national average of 74.3 per cent.

London is also adrift on its conviction rate for rape cases, which stands at 52.8 per cent, nine points lower than the national figure, and its success with hate crime prosecutions.

Today’s assessment comes four years after a far more critical 2010 report on the Crown Prosecution Service in London and will raise fresh concerns about whether offenders in the capital are being adequately dealt with.

Unveiling the new findings, Michael Fuller, HM Chief Inspector of the CPS, said that an extra 1,741 Crown Court defendants would have pleaded guilty if London had performed in line with national average and that defendants appeared to be choosing to contest cases in the hope that the prosecution would collapse because of administrative or other failings.

He added: “London is still the worst performing area within the CPS. It is far better managed than it ever was and has had huge restructuring to deal with, but the performance could still be dramatically improved. There is no reason why Londoners should get a poorer performance than the rest of the country.”

Mr Fuller said that key problems included a frequent failure to review cases or deal with key evidence in time. This meant that weak cases were abandoned too late, wasting money and leaving fewer resources to deal with other prosecutions.

Other cases, which could have been “strengthened”, collapsed instead because it became too late to address gaps in the prosecution.

Overall, prosecutors had a “full grip” of only a third of cases, with a Crown Court analysis also revealing “no grip” of nearly one fifth of the prosecutions examined.

Mr Fuller said that he had also found that failures by prosecutors over custody time limits - which set maximum periods before defendants held in prison must be tried or released – were creating a risk that dangerous suspects could be freed on bail.

Other concerns highlighted in today’s report include high overtime payments in the past year of £1.2 million for lawyers and £1.8 million for administrative staff, equivalent to the cost of employing 11 full time prosecutors and 41 full-time administrators.

Sickness rates at CPS London which averaged 12 days per person in the most recent annual statistics were also the highest in the country and cost £541,000 – equivalent to the cost of nearly nine full-time lawyers. Nearly a quarter of the absences were attributed to stress.

Today’s report also points out that London spends 32 per cent more than the national average on each member of staff, “not all of which can be attributed to higher London pay scales”, and that the “significantly higher” cost of prosecutors in the capital are “not reflected in the proportion of successful outcomes”.

Baljit Ubhey, the chief crown prosecutor for London, said that despite the criticism, the report recognised the “substantial progress” made in the capital since 2010.

She said that staff had also achieved further improvements since the inspection took place, but accepted that better performance was still required to overcome the “unique pressures and challenges” faced by prosecutors in London.

She added: “ London has delivered the most improved performance nationally in 2013/14. This report recognises the progress made but also rightly identifies where further work is required. I don’t shy away from the fact that more must and will be done.”

Today’s report by Mr Fuller and his inspectors is based on an examination of files, staff surveys, interviews with the judiciary and others affected by CPS work, and the observation of court cases in London.

London’s conviction rate for rape cases, which stands at 52.8 per cent, is also nine points lower than the national figure.

HM Chief Inspector of the CPS, Michael Fuller, said: “London is still the worst performing area within the CPS. It is far better managed than it ever was and has had huge restructuring to deal with, but the performance could still be dramatically improved.

“There is no reason why Londoners should get a poorer performance than the rest of the country.”

Mr Fuller said that key problems included a frequent failure to review cases or deal with key evidence in time, meaning that weak cases were abandoned too late, wasting money.

The report also highlighted high overtime lawyer payments of £1.2million.