EXCLUSIVE: 'CPS makes mistakes all the time' during court cases - Judge in shock courtroom admission

A Crown Court judge dismissed an unexplained clear error of fact presented by the CPS, during a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) restraining order discharge application case, as "a mistake" then went on to suggest they happen "all the time", in a shock courtroom admission.

The comment was made during an application by Julian Wright (above) to discharge a replacement restraining order the same judge earlier placed on his home in favour of the CPS on September 30 last year.

Wright, who represented himself in court, argued that the new restraining order was an abuse of process by the CPS, because he believes it was applied for in "bad faith" as a malicious act in response to complaints he refuses to drop against the CPS and Met Police, that an "important" page from a mobile phone expert's witness statement was allegedly removed from the bundle ahead of his criminal trial in 2016.

In December we reported on the previous hearing in the extraordinary case at Snaresbrook Crown Court when Wright claimed police and the CPS "slipped out" the page before his criminal trial and also "stole a Range Rover" that should have formed part of the subsequent proceeds of crime case.

Wright, 59, made the alarming allegations as he argued they had joined forces to launch a "vindictive" review of his assets because he progressed the complaint to a watchdog and also got his MP Wes Streeting to raise alleged anomalies with his prosecution.

Wright told the court on December 5 2024 that a Met Police financial investigator had applied for a new restraining order upon his home shortly after the CPS Independent Assessor of Complaints (IAC) issued a report that partially upheld his complaint against the Government agency.

MP Wes Streeting tried to get answers from the CPS about the missing page before the review of Wright's assets was launched

Wright had complained in 2023 to the IAC, which independently looks at complaints about the prosecution service, that the CPS had refused to respond to his complaint.

The complaint had sought answers about why the third page, from a four-page statement made by a prosecution witness who forensically examined one of his mobile phones, was not included in the criminal trial bundle.

One of the IAC's roles is to intervene in cases where the CPS does not respond to complaints.

But in February 2024 the IAC told Wright there was nothing it could do for him.

It was only after he wrote back, arguing it was not fulfilling its role, that it agreed to investigate the matter.

Following the IAC intervention the Met Police confirmed that it only sent three of the pages to the CPS for the bundle ahead of the trial, but this was not spotted by the CPS at the time.

Neither the police or CPS have been able to explain why it was missing.

The prosecution witness, who made the four-page statement, was not required to attend the trial to give live evidence, after the defence and prosecution agreed it could be submitted as a "section 9" statement.

But it was then not even read out in full to the court.

It was, instead, summarised by the CPS prosecutor during his 2016 criminal trial, so neither the trial judge or jury were aware that a page was missing.

Wright only discovered that the page was missing after his release from prison, after finding that it was included in his subsequent POCA proceedings bundle.

In the missing page the mobile phone expert had recommended investigating police officers obtain itemised billing for one of Wright's mobile phones.

Yet no itemised billing was ever submitted as evidence in the trial.

Wright claims it is significant because he argued in his defence that text messages from his ex-partner, saying she was working with the police, and making allegations about him, had not been disclosed during his trial.

See example text below:

The prosecutor alleged during the trial this was a fabrication by Wright, but is has since been established by the Court of Appeal, that those texts exist and were not disclosed by the prosecution.

Although the Court of Appeal did not allow his appeal to proceed, saying he should have raised it during the criminal trial, and this alone would not have swayed the jury.

The new restraining order was also granted upon his Ilford home on September 30 in private at a private ex parte hearing at the same court, at a hearing that Wright was not notified about nor able to attend.

The same Met Police financial investigator said in his application for the ex parte hearing that there would be a risk of Wright "dissipating the property" if he had been made aware of the proceedings.

Wright argued this was also untrue, as the original restraining order clearly prevented this, so it should have been varied, if necessary, at a hearing he should have attended.

His Honour Judge Ross Cohen gave no view on this argument, at the latest hearing on March 4 2025, but claimed the new restraining order had been properly made and the old one then subsequently discharged.

At the earlier hearing in December, applying for the new restraining order to be discharged, Wright argued it had been applied for as a vindictive act in response to what he said was a partially upheld complaint about the CPS and the force in respect of the alleged missing page.

Asked by Judge Cohen why he believed the application was malicious, Wright said: "Because they (police and CPS) slipped a page out of a statement and they stole a Range Rover that should have been part of the POCA."

The CPS is able to review someone's assets if the available amount paid off was lower than the overall assessed criminal gain.

But, it usually happens in response to new information about newly acquired assets, concealed wealth, a significant increase in value or undervaluation.

Wright argued none of these applied in his case.

He also argued that the timing of the restraining order application after the IAC filed its report to the CPS, coupled with his claim that none of his financial circumstances had changed since the earlier POCA proceedings ended, suggested it was vindictive.

Michael Newbold, representing the CPS, assured Judge Cohen that there was no ill-intent, stressing that neither the police officer or the CPS prosecutor involved in the application, were subject to any of Wright's earlier complaints.

About 460 grams of skunk weed was found at the property he owns, in Ilford, in September 2014, in various locations and Wright was charged with four counts of the supply of cannabis in connection with it.

But, he was only convicted of one count of possession with intent to supply concerning just 16.2 grams worth about £100.

He was also convicted of the possession of £2,370 cash of criminal property at the trial at Snaresbrook in April 2016.

Wright, who continues to deny the offences, served three months of a 12-month jail sentence before being subject to a POCA confiscation hearing.

The POCA case concluded that his overall criminal benefit of his offending was £776,538 but that £330,979 was available to be recovered through the sale of a number of properties and a pension.

The lower amount was supposed to be paid within three months of the POCA case which concluded in March 2017.

However, after he struggled to sell one of the properties, and the case was put on ice while he unsuccessfully took his conviction to the Court of Appeal in 2021, the total amount was not settled until September 2023.

Wright was able to clear the confiscation order after selling other properties and assets, but without selling his home, and had racked up about £80,000 of interest, half of which had also been paid.

The CPS has also applied to the court for a production order to get details of Wright's mortgage account, so it can assess his level of equity remaining in the property.

Wright argued the CPS was aware of the situation with the property since the original confiscation proceedings and nothing had changed since.

Judge Cohen initially said he was minded to side with the CPS by not discharging the restraining order at the December hearing.

Wright also sought a series of disclosure requests in relation to his trial, arguing the CPS had a "duty of candour" to release anything that could be seen to undermine the CPS case.

But, Mr Newbold argued none of his requests were relevant to the restraining order application and he should not be able to "use the restraint proceedings to bolster a looming case before the Criminal Case Review Commission.

Judge Cohen advised he did not believe the disclosure requests to be relevant.

However, after Wright requested an adjournment to see if he could find a lawyer to represent him, the Judge agreed to put off reaching a verdict until this year.

Judge Cohen also asked the CPS to provide a chronology of events, including of Wright's complaints, and why the CPS was taking the action now, in order to assess Wright's claims of bad faith.

However, he warned Wright that he did not currently expect to find any grounds of why he would discharge the restraining order or refuse the police production order request.

In the police financial investigator's application for the new restraining order, he said to the court in a signed statement of truth, that he had seen all the case papers in connection with Wright's prosecution, and there was nothing to disclose that undermined the prosecution or assisted the defence.

In 2023 the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) reached findings in relation to a number of other complaints Wright made about the Met Police in respect of several missing documents from the criminal investigation.

These included missing search warrants, search records and allegedly seized financial records of Wright's.

The IOPC outcome dismissed many of the complaints, partially upheld some about missing documents, which is a recurring theme throughout his overall case.

Ahead of the December hearing, and in calling for disclosure in respect of these missing documents as some of them were referenced in the investigator's application, Wright suggested the police financial investigator should have disclosed to the court about his myriad of complaints, as it could be argued they could be seen to undermine the prosecution and bolster his case.

In an email to Wright sent a day before the December hearing, the CPS prosecutor said that, despite the police investigator's earlier statement about seeing all the case papers, that he had actually not known about any of Wright's complaints, because he was only "aware of his case" from September 2024.

The prosecutor went on to assert that the police investigator had now reviewed the complaint material and was still of the view that there was nothing to disclose.

He wrote: "Thank you for your email of 29 November 2024 enclosing your revised disclosure request. The FI (financial investigator) was unaware of your case before September 2024 and unaware of the complaints that you had made about your case and the appeal that you had lodged with the Court of Appeal against your conviction.

"Following your most recent request in which you divulged details about your complaints and appeal the FI conducted further enquiries to inform himself about them for the purposes of exercising his obligations under the relevant disclosure regime...

"The prosecution is aware of its duties under the Common Law in relation to those issues, the prosecution has complied with those duties, and there is nothing to disclose."

Wright told the hearing this month that this was, in fact, wrong, as the financial investigator had exhibited with the restraining order application a title deed search of Wright's home that he undertook on July 18 2024.

This proved he was aware of Wright's case from at least that date, which was at least six weeks before the CPS prosecutor suggested he became involved - a significant discrepancy.

This was also a day before the CPS had claimed that the review of his assets had started on July 19, in the chronology the Judge ordered be supplied to the court.

The CPS is responsible for requesting such a review, so this left the question of why the police financial investigator was working on the review a day before it had apparently begun and at whose instruction.

Wright argued in submissions to the court that the CPS had also left out important details about events with the involvement of Mr Streeting and the IAC from April 2024 in the run up to the review of his assets, from its chronology.

There were also unanswered questions about when the police investigator obtained information about his bank balances, and whether it was before the Metro Bank suddenly shut down his account on June 21 last year without explanation.

Wright argued to Judge Cohen that without knowing the true start date of the review of his assets, who within the CPS requested it took place and their rationale as to why, he could not adequately assess if it was done in bad faith or not.

Wright urged him to force the CPS to disclose this missing information before considering the discharge and production order applications.

The CPS had written to Wright ahead of the latest hearing arguing that none of his new disclosure requests surrounding the "incomplete chronology" would be supplied as they "did not meet a disclosure test" with no explanation as to why.

Judge Cohen appeared to agree with the CPS, saying he had seen "no evidence whatsoever" to support a claim of bad faith against it, despite the many anomalies and the wrongly given information about when the police investigator became involved.

Mr Newbold told the judge that the now known to be wrong information the prosecutor provided Mr Wright in the December 4 email about the police investigator not being aware of his case until September, and then going on to review the complaints and carry out a new disclosure exercise, had been a "mistake."

He gave no explanation as to how such a detailed account in the December 4 email could have been given in error, and Judge Cohen sought no such explanation from him.

In fact, Judge Cohen said: "That was a mistake. Mistakes are made all the time."

Wright tried to argue it was "a big mistake", but Judge Cohen added: "It is your belief that this was done in bad faith, and you are entitled to that belief, but that does not mean it is the case. None of that, I am afraid comes anywhere close to establishing bad faith."

"I have seen no evidence whatsoever that this has been done in bad faith."

Judge Cohen dismissed Wright's restraining order discharge application, meaning it will stay in place.

He also approved the production order application, meaning Wright's bank will have to provide details of his mortgage account to the Met Police, so it can investigate further the asset.

Outside court Wright vowed to continue fighting for answers from the CPS and the Met Police about the missing page and several other anomalies in his case.

Essex News and Investigations Honestly Held Opinion Based on the Facts Before Us

How can a CPS prosecutor say something as specific as "the officer was not aware of your case until September, so did not know about all your complaints, but has now looked at them and carried out another disclosure exercise" and then, when faced with evidence that this was not true, because the officer was working on the case in July, just say "oh when we said that it was a mistake?"

It is not credible and it requires an explanation at the very least. Judge Cohen, in the view of Essex News and Investigations, should have required the CPS to provide that explanation in court.

We would have been very interested to hear what it was and the CPS is invited to provide one.

We have long suspected that the courts favour the prosecution over defendants when they should be impartial adjudicators, and this case certainly points towards that.

Imagine how the prosecution would have used it to its advantage if a defendant had come out with such a statement that was later proven to be wrong. It would be branded a "lie".

Then for the Judge to say that the CPS "makes mistakes all the time", as if it has no consequence on the cases these "mistakes" are being made in, appears, on the face of it, to be an extraordinary admission.

If CPS mistakes are so commonplace, how do we know what and what isn't correct in the evidence placed before courts, especially if these mistakes are not being explained or investigated to see how they occurred, such as the one in Julian Wright's case.

It is clear to any observer on this case that the CPS has not been full and frank about what triggered the review of Wright's assets and that without details of who ordered the review, when and why, the bad faith assessment could not be carried out. The Common law disclosure test says it must be full and frank and fair, particularly where there have been ex parte hearings. Who knows what was said at that hearing that could have influenced proceedings. Julian Wright certainly doesn't know.

Also, what was the point of Judge Cohen ordering the chronology if Wright was not able to subject it to further scrutiny and request further disclosure if he alleged important aspects of the timetable were missing as he did?

In our view, the disclosure requests should have been allowed and the case determined once that information was provided, in the interest of fairness.

Also, this, and many other cases, show that it is no longer fair for the CPS to be the arbitrator of what it discloses in cases. It is like you entering into a duel with someone and they get to choose a sword and give you a rusty butter knife.

That isn't fair.

An independent National Disclosure Unit needs to be set up to take this role from the CPS so that disclosure can be carried out properly and fairly by an agency not directly involved in the case.