A drug driving prosecution has been dismissed after the Crown Prosecution Service failed to respond to three separate emails, which it claimed not to have received.
CPS lawyers were asked to provide Ahmed Ismail’s solicitors with access to a data pack in the case, which concerned an allegation that the 32-year-old defendant had been driving over the limit for Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in Slough last year.
But despite data pack access becoming a live issue in October 2024 and Ismail’s solicitors, Qore Legal Ltd, sending three letters - in April, May and June - the CPS failed to facilitate access for his lawyers.
Richard Atkins, for the CPS, asked for an adjournment of the case in Reading magistrates court today, accusing Ismail’s solicitors of 'gamesmanship' and pointing out that they should have telephoned the CPS.
But District Judge Samuel Goozee refused the application, finding that ‘on the face of it’ letters from the defence were sent to a valid CPS email address. 'This is not one of those cases where the defence sent to an obsolete address or an address with incorrect spelling,’ the judge said. ‘I am not presented with any explanation for why it has not been received or acted on by the CPS.'
He added the issue had been live at the time a previous trial listing was aborted in February and so the Crown could not ‘hide behind’ the lack of action from the defence to seek a case management hearing.
‘This has been a live issue since October 2024, a live issue since the aborted trial on 14 February’, Goozee added. ‘The crown is unable to explain to me today what arrangements have been made, despite correspondence dealing with it and this is the second listing of the trial.’
The judge refused to adjourn the case, leaving Atkins - who was unable to rely on the data pack given it had not been made available to the defence as required by the Criminal Procedure Rules - to ask for the charge to be dismissed.
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