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.



Catherine Baksi