Wales and Cheshire Region Practice Direction
In all criminal cases committed/transferred to the Crown Court where either the prosecution or the defence require disclosure of information from the Social Services Department of a Local Authority and in order to ensure that only genuinely necessary requests are pursued and that they do not cause undue delay to the Crown Court proceedings, the following practice shall be followed:
Requests for disclosure shall be made in writing directly to the Social Services department concerned and copied to other parties in the proceedings and shall:
a) contain all information available to the applicant to identify the subject of the file including the name or names, relevant addresses, and any other detail available to facilitate the search for the file;
b) identify the type of information required and explain why it is claimed to be admissible in, and relevant to, the criminal proceedings and why it cannot be obtained from a source other than Social Services files;
c) be accompanied by copies of:
i) the Indictment;
ii) the Case Summary; and
iii) the Complainant's witness statements/depositions/record of video interview.
Requests shall be made in good time before the date of the Plea and Directions Hearing (PDH) and at such hearing applicants must be ready to justify the need for their requests. The Social Services Department must be notified of the date of the PDH by the party making the application and will be heard at the PDH.
In the following paragraphs the time limits referred to are intended as maximum. In complicated cases the Resident Judge may authorise an extension. Nothing in this Direction is intended to preclude cases being dealt with more quickly whenever possible.
At least 7 days before the PDH the applicant shall issue a summons to the Social Services Department requiring production of the information already requested in writing.
At the PDH the Court will consider whether a Public Interest Immunity Hearing (Pll) is necessary and if not will proceed to list for Trial in the ordinary way.
If at the PDH a Pll hearing is deemed necessary a Trial date will be fixed and the Trial Judge will be identified. In addition a preliminary hearing date will be fixed approximately 7 days prior to the Trial date before the Trial Judge for a Pll Hearing.
If the issue of Pll arises exceptionally and unavoidably after the PDH, it shall be the responsibility of the applicant to make a further application to the Court for directions forthwith and to comply in all other respects with the Practice Direction as if the date for the direction hearing were the date of the PDH.
With 14 days of the Court giving directions concerning Pll the Social Services Department shall respond by:
- filing in Court a Schedule of Documents divided into three parts, as follows:
Part 1: Possibly relevant and admissable - Disclosure not opposed
Part 2: Possibly relevant but inadmissible - Disclosure opposed
Part 3: Irrelevant - Disclosure opposed
The Schedule shall be accompanied by copies of documents referred to in Parts 1 and 2 therein and an Affidavit setting out the Social Services Department's response to the Summons. The complete file shall, at the same time, be lodged in Court for the perusal of the Judge alone. A copy of the Schedule and Affidavit [but not copies of the documents] will be served within the same period upon the Prosecution and Defence.
At or before the Pll Hearing the Judge may, after considering the documents in Part 1 of the Schedule, order their immediate disclosure.
At the Pll hearing, having heard arguments the Judge will consider whether to order disclosure of each of the documents in Parts ll and/or lll of the Schedule.
All parties will be required to undertake to hold and make use of information provided to them as a result of any Pll Hearing only for the purpose of the criminal proceedings to which the Pll Hearing relates and will return to the sources from which they came all material and copies thereof so obtained at the conclusion of the said criminal proceedings.
The Hon. Mr Justice Curtis
The Hon. Mr Justice Maurice Kay
18 April 1996
This Practice Direction has been devised after considering the views and experiences of local Social Services Departments and following discussion by the Area Criminal Justice Liaison Committees.
Its purpose is to introduce a uniform procedure for dealing with the increasing number of requests in criminal proceedings for disclosure of information from Social Services files. Each request imposes an expensive and time consuming burden on Social Services resources and is liable to delay the criminal trial. Therefore, the procedure set out in the Practice Direction is intended to do three things:
i) to try to ensure that only genuinely necessary requests are pursued and that "fishing expeditions" are discouraged;
ii) to streamline the process of retrieving and supplying the information requested in a way which caters for the concerns felt by Social Services regarding the need for confidentiality and their duty to protect information held on their files and at the same time ensuring that the parties to criminal proceedings have access to all information necessary to enable a fair trial; and
iii) to try to ensure that the conflict of interests which require a Pll Hearing do not unduly delay the progress of the criminal proceedings.
The procedure is not to be confined to "children cases". Social Services are frequently being asked to supply information about people upon whom they hold files from the time when they were children but who, by the time of the request for disclosure, have long since reached adulthood.
An illustration of the timetable described in the Practice Direction appears on the following page. Note - that the times shown are maximum. Nothing in the Practice Direction or this explanatory note shall preclude cases being dealt with more quickly where possible.
Paragraph 11 of the Direction reflects the need for parties to whom information is released not to use it for any other purpose other than the current criminal proceedings to which the Pll hearing related. There have been instances of such information being put to other unauthorised uses.
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PDH
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Pll Hearing
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Trial
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--7 Days--
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--14 Days--
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---7 Days---
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---7 Days---
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Summons to be served on Social Services at least 7 days before PDH |
Social Service to respond; retrieve info; prepare Schedule & affidavit and file in Court | For the Judge to consider documents filed |
For parties to consider documents supplied after Pll hearing |
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------------------------------------28 Days-----------------
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Note that these are maximum times - Nothing in the Practice Direction or Explanatory Note should preclude cases being dealt with more quickly whenever possible |
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