A Selby man has been acquitted of charges of stalking and voyeurism, after the CPS failed to disclose its evidence in the case to the defence.
Two days of valuable court time had been set aside for the man's trial, which involved ten prosecution witnesses. The defendant spent five weeks on remand in the lead up to the trial.
The man was accused of stalking a woman between December and February by making phone calls and visiting her property. He was also said to have made video recordings of the woman for his own sexual gratification.
The CPS also alleged he had committed two offences on bail. He was charged with stalking the woman between April and June by going to her place of work and staring through its windows and breaching a non-molestation order made by the Family Court to protect the woman.
For three months, ever since his first court appearance, despite three court orders made on three different days and several requests from the defence for information, the CPS failed to disclose details of its case to the defence, York Magistrates Court heard.
District Judge Adrian Lower blamed the collapse of the trial on the CPS, saying: "These are serious charges. It is clearly the prosecution's fault. There cannot be a fair trial."
Chris Hartley, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: "We were very disappointed at the outcome of this case and we would like to apologise to the complainant for the distress caused.
"We have immediately begun a full and thorough review of the circumstances in order to understand why we were not able to fully respond to the defence submissions that were accepted by the District Judge and to identify any lessons to be learned so that we can ensure this does not happen again.
"When this review is completed, we will be writing to the complainant to provide a full explanation."
A very poor effort by the CPS on this occasion. All parties will understandably feel very aggrieved at the way things have panned out.
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