[2011] EWHC 472 (Admin)

The policy of the Crown Prosecution Service to take over the conduct of private prosecutions in order to discontinue them where there was no reasonable prospect of conviction against any of the accused was lawful. The High Court should be slow to conclude that the judgment of an expert prosecutor as to the reliability of evidence or the likelihood of securing a conviction was so far out that it should be struck down as irrational: that was an area where challenges by way of judicial review were to be strongly discouraged.

DC (Richards LJ, Edwards-Stuart J)

09/03/2011