England: CPS asks for between £25m and £50m in the wake of unprecedented caseload

Alison Saunders (pictured) has said that the increase, which she described as “unheralded” has resulted in hundred of more trials every year at a time coinciding with heavy budget cuts.

Ms Saunders said most of the increasingly complex cases concerned sexual violence but also included terrorism and fraud.

The rise in work has meant the CPS has been forced to call on the attorney general, Jeremy Wright QC to secure between £25 million and £50m from the Treasury this year.

Speaking to The Times, Ms Saunders said the CPS could not endure more cuts – its budget has dropped by £139m since 2010 – going from £705m to £566m.

“We have made all the efficiencies that we can; reorganised ourselves, got rid of buildings. We are a much leaner organisation and don’t have the fat we had four years ago,” she said.

The CPS has implemented a real cut over the last four years of 24 per cent, or nearer 31 per cent, when inflation is accounted for.

But Ms Saunders said the prosecution landscape is now changing in the wake of Operation Yewtree and some institutional sex abuse investigations the scale of which is unprecedented.

She estimates the extra cost of these “unforeseen cases” could be in the region of £25m to £50m for this year and next.

Compared to 2013, the number of rape and sexual assault trials was up b 30 per cent – an addition 550 trials.

The director of public prosecutions also expressed concern that the acquittal rate in rape cases was too high at about 40 per cent.