Across the country thousands of criminal cases are collapsing every year because of lost, damaged or missing evidence, between October 2020 and September 2024, data from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) reveals more than 30,000 prosecutions in England and Wales collapsed.
Here in Cumbria between October 2020 and September 2024 a total of 8645 prosecutions were handed to the CPS by Cumbria Police with 71 of those cases collapsing due to lost or missing evidence.
Police chiefs say not all the cases relate to lost evidence and the figures include situations where officers may not be able to find an expert witness or get a medical statement.
However, it follows a series of damning reports about how police forces are storing evidence.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "We always expect forces to adhere to the National Police Chiefs' Council's (NPCC) guidance on storage and retention of evidence."
A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs’ Council said:
“Police and the CPS work together to ensure evidence is gathered and presented in a timely manner, bringing offenders to justice and ensuring victims are safeguarded. The E72 category refers to evidence that is either missing or unavailable when a defendant is going to trial following being charged. For example, police may not be able to find an expert witness to give evidence or it may be that a required medical statement cannot be obtained.
“When evidential issues occur in a case, the CPS will raise this with police for any action deemed necessary and we will work together to ensure these are resolved wherever possible.”
When police build cases around defendants they hand a file to the CPS. But when the CPS cannot proceed to trial because police do not have the necessary evidence needed to secure a conviction they record it in their data as an "E72".
Through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests data showing the number of E72s recorded between 2020 and 2024 for police forces in England and Wales.
Professor Carole McCartney a criminology lecturer and evidence retention expert at the University of Leicester. Who was involved in the research 'into the number of cases that has collapsed Said “The E72 label encompasses quite a lot of different scenarios.”
“We've got evidence of officers or crime scene examiners attending scenes and simply not gathering the evidence that is required - not getting the physical evidence, or they're not getting the CCTV footage.”
“Sometimes they don't know where evidence is or they've lost it, it's damaged or contaminated - we haven't got a chain of custody. We don't know where it's been and you can't actually rely on the exhibit because the police can't testify to its reliability.”
“But it could be missing in the sense that the prosecution requires a key bit of evidence or a witness statement or an expert to clarify, yes, this is the firearm and they simply haven't got the report or the witness statement. The prosecutors then take the decision that, without that bit of evidence, there's no realistic prospect of conviction.”
In 2020, a total of 7,484 prosecutions collapsed because of lost, missing or damaged evidence. In 2024, that had risen by 9%, to 8,180.
Cumbria police have been asked for comment but have yet to provide any response on the findings of the research that revealed that 71 cases collapsed in Cumbria and given the E72 label by the CPS.
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