Partly excellent, partly abysmal? Jon Robins reports on the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Just what is the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) for? The question isn’t facetious. For all its problems, the cash-strapped and oversubscribed Birmingham-based miscarriage of justice watchdog seems blessed with a simplicity of purpose. It was set up in 1997 with a single job: to send wrongful convictions back to the Court of Appeal.
At least, that’s what we thought.
Commenting on a government review, the CCRC’s new chair Helen Pitcher last month said that the number of cases it referred for appeal ‘while clearly very important’ should ‘not be the be-all-and-end-all’. ‘I think perhaps too little attention is paid to the other outcomes of the Commission’s work, such as the considerable value we bring to the justice system in the de facto audit of the safety of convictions and correctness of sentences in each case we consider but do not refer…,’ Pitcher asserted.
This isn’t the first time that the CCRC has sought to resist the idea that it be judged solely on its referrals. In last
