The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) secured a guilty verdict after completing its first-ever in-house murder prosecution as the agency seeks to keep more of its work in-house.

The CPS has an ongoing strategy to increase the amount of higher court advocacy conduced by its own lawyers. External counsel cost it ?137 million per year.

Hertfordshire CPS?s senior court advocate Ann Evans was lead counsel, with Sally Mealing-Mcleod junior counsel. The case involved the killing of 17-year-old David Paine, who was involved in a fight at a party in Stevenage.

Ms Evans said there were great advantages to keeping the case in-house and having her junior counsel at the next desk. ?Being in direct e-mail communication with the police officers in the case made changes or requests run very efficiently.?

The 2005-06 CPS annual report revealed that in-house advocacy saved ?4.7 million that would have gone to counsel, up from ?1.2 million the year before.