England: CPS paying off bad lawyers with taxpayer money

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has given taxpayer-funded redundancy payments to lawyers who have brought the body into disrepute and has also assigned underperforming prosecutors to complex cases.

A former manager said she was told to give poor performing lawyers sensitive cases to protect the prosecuting body from equal pay challenges.

The CPS employs more than 2,200 lawyers, among them 242 crown advocates, who deal with the most complex cases.

Freedom of information figures reveal that it has paid out £444,573 in voluntary redundancy payments to nine members of staff found guilty of misconduct, with three senior prosecutors numbering among them.

One senior lawyer has been given a payout despite bringing the CPS “into serious disrepute”.

Lyall Thompson, 45, performed so poorly in an attempted murder trial that the judge complained to the CPS. Judge Anthony Morris said that the “instruction of inadequate advocates creates difficulties. Are we to intervene to prevent miscarriages of justice … and run the risk of appearing to support the prosecution, or are we to remain silent and allow possible miscarriages of justice to occur?”

Lynne Townley, 48, who was formerly Mr Thompson’s manager, sued the CPS last year, alleging she was told to place bad senior lawyers on complex cases rather than simpler ones to avoid equal pay claims from junior lawyers working on those cases.

Bob Neill MP, chairman of the Justice Select Committee, said Ms Townley’s allegation “confirmed a growing set of suspicions about CPS work”.

“If people aren’t good enough then they should be managed out or trained up,” he said.