Disclosure of unused material in the Crown Court – follow-up report (1 MB)

This inspection is a follow-up to one we reported on in January 2020, looking at the CPS’s handling of the disclosure of unused material in the Crown Court.

The January 2020 report highlighted that, whilst there was evidence of some progress over time, there remained much room for improvement. Therefore, to assess whether more improvements have been made, we decided to conduct this follow-up inspection, in which we examine more recent cases.

In the usual course of events, we would not have followed up on the January 2020 report in the same year as we published it. The methodology for this follow-up, however, lent itself to the working conditions demanded by the coronavirus pandemic. We hope it will assist the CPS in focusing resources at this testing time.