England: Criminal Cases Review Commission launches new online library
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The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has launched an online library of every case it has sent back to the courts since 1997.
The CCRC Case Library allows users to search, filter, and read brief summaries of each case, which focus on the main reasons the CCRC made the reference to the appellate courts.
The CCRC has so far referred almost 850 cases back to the courts. Over 820 of those cases have now been heard, with the appeal successful in more than two-thirds of them.
A spokesperson for the CCRC said said: “Our new case library will help people understand more fully the range of the work carried out by our team, and the basis on which our many hundreds of referrals have been made.
“We hope this will assist potential applicants and support our work in finding and investigating possible miscarriages of justice.”
The case library aims to help potential applicants understand the reasons why a conviction or sentence might be granted a fresh appeal.
It will also be a useful point of reference for journalists, researchers, legal professionals, and those interested in miscarriages of justice.
Users can filter cases according to categories of offence, such as murder, theft or fraud, and categories of referral, including non-disclosure, police misconduct and new witness evidence.
All entries have been tagged according to the relevant category of offence and the relevant categories of referral. If, for example, a theft conviction was referred by the CCRC based on police misconduct, the case will be tagged with both ‘theft’ and ‘police misconduct’.
Some entries have been anonymised to protect individuals’ identities. Sensitive and confidential information is not included in case summaries.
There is no filter for jurisdiction, though there are some 49 results when searching for the term “Northern Ireland” as of time of publication.