Lying On A Statement To The Police.

[Keith469]

A lady told police in a written statement that she had seen my son smash a bus window.She failed to turn up for court and when we heard the tape of the 999 call it was clear she did not see this. The C.P.S. said, Our witness has not turned up and even if she did it is clear that she has lied on her statemet.No further eveidence was produced and the case dissmised.We also had two witnesses that said my son was not there at the time of the offence.
Can we now sue this woman for the cost we have occured during this long trial.

[boxtops]

Ask the court, take your own legal advice. I would.

[Vivkins3]

If you had a solicitor at the court hearing when the charge was dismissed, I would have expected THEM to ask for your costs.

[EDDIE51]

Yes, you should have been paid costs when the case was dismissed.
Get back on to the court and tell them you want reimbursement of the costs , the court have to pay and then it is up to them if they try to recover the money .
Did you have a solicitor ? as has been said he/she should have asked for costs at the time .
To answer the question, you can't sue the person it is down to the court to pay you.

[Keith469]

Thanks for all who answered.....
Our solicitor was useless and admitted that he did not beleive my son was innocent until our witnesses turned up in court and he heard the tape.Wont be using him again.Not sure if i can name them but they are in based in Kingston and may or may not have an office in union street.

[New Judge]

Not correct, I'm afraid, Eddie.

There is no automatic right for a defendant to claim his costs or be awarded compensation following an aquittal in a criminal court. There is a limited provision for the Crown Court to award costs for indictable (that is, Crown Court) matters, and there are provisions for Magistrates' courts to award costs for cases where a prosecution is started but not continued. There are other provisions relating to appeals and discontinued matters but in general that's about it. The only circumstances where costs and/or compensation may be awarded is where it can be shown that the prosecution was malicious or false. It would have to be shown that:

1. The Crown Prosecution Service/Police acted without “reasonable and probable cause”

AND

2. The Crown Prosecution Service/Police acted maliciously.

Both these seem to be unlikely from Keith's description.

Keith could try launching a civil action against the CPS but it would be almost certain to fail. Again, the only time it is likely to succeed is if it could be shown that the prosecution was false or malicious. A more likely route to success would be to launch a civil action against the witness, though this again would be very likely to fail. Keith should take advice before going down this route.

It is probable that all acquitted defendants would feel aggrieved in being unable to recover their costs, but the CPS cannot be reluctant to prosecute matters for fear of the costs incurred should the prosecution fail.

[Tilly2]

What was wrong with my 'costs incurred' answer?

[Peter Pedant]

Tilly : many are called but few chosen.....


I have to say I thought there was a common law rule : a case shall not beget a case,

the exceptions being perjury and conspiracy to perver the course of justice which are not really goers here.

Even if perjury were shown - it isnt a civil wrong (tort) so you can sue on it in civil law.

So I think erm you are st+ffed on this one

Malice is incredibly hard to show: the little old lady has to put her hand on her heart and say I lied about that young man because he has red hair !
,
Almost nothing else will do. - a conclusion is not enough as in 'this lady's statementis so obviously untrue the only conclusion is malice.' is definitely not enough.

Forget this, put it behind you, get on with your lives and have a good xmas.

[New Judge]

Quite right Peter. And an added frustration for Keith is that the malice must be on the part of the police or the CPS rather than the witness and that most certainly does not seem to have been demonstrated here.

[Keith469]

Once again,thanks to you all for your imput.
We have lodged a complaint with the C.P.S as they witheld the tape that proved she was lying on her statment.The C.P.S only handed over the tape as we were going in to court.
As for the lady in question,it appears she has done this before. She must have had such a bad life to want to destroy others,so we have decided to let her stew in her own juice. She lied to the police so i guess its there job to sort that out.
Once again thank you.

P.S. Tilly2. Thats what i said diddle i?

[Tilly2]

Did you have my answer removed then, Keith?

[bednobs]

tilly, your answer was probably removed because it had nothing to do with the question at all, and didn't provide any sort of answer, Ed usually tolerates that sort of answer in chatterbank for example, but not in the more "serious" categories
Ie "if you don't have an answer to the question, don't post" sort of thing

[Tilly2]

Thank you, bednobs. I didn't answer the question but I did point out the correct terminology i.e. incurring costs, rather than occurring costs.

Oh well. I see now.

[bednobs]

i'm guessing that ed removed it cause it doesn't really make a difference to the answer whether the poster used the right word or not