More than 1000 criminal lawyers in England and Wales have experienced disclosure of evidence failings in the last year with one in three saying they believed such failings had led to possible wrongful convictions or miscarriages of justice. The research was carried out by the BBC which surveyed the Criminal Law Solicitors' Association, the London Criminal Courts Solicitors' Association and the Criminal Bar Association after media headlines over trials impacted by the prosecution's failure to disclose evidence. The survey found that 97 per cent of respondents had encountered disclosure of evidence failings in the past 12 months with over half (55 per cent) saying the failures had caused trials to collapse. A third said the failures resulted in 'possible' wrongful conviction or miscarriage of justice whilst eight in ten said that failure to disclose evidence had led to delays. 

Urgent steps

The Criminal Law Solicitors' Association said of the findings:  'We hope we can persuade the government and judiciary to take urgent steps to tackle these ongoing breaches of the existing rules and certainly hope that once the dust has settled, we can work together with the relevant parties to reform the system so that we do not experience these very frustrating day to day issues with disclosure and so that the public can have confidence that the system is treating all parties fairly and securing justice for those involved.'