CPS report on hold as Mills draws up response

PUBLICATION of the long-awaited Glidewell review into the Crown Prosecution Service has been put on hold to allow Director of Public Prosecutions Dame Barbara Mills QC to respond to the report's findings.

The Lawyer understands that the retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Iain Glidewell has conceded to a request by Mills and her senior managers to be allowed to make a detailed response to the report before it is published.

It is also understood that the CPS has brought in outside consultants to help it draw up its response to the report.

The move is being interpreted by some observers as a sign that the report's contents are potentially explosive for Mills, whose running of the CPs has come under constant criticism.

Glidewell's inquiry was originally supposed to report back to the government last December. But Attorney General John Morris QC has been repeatedly forced to put back the date of its publication.

Earlier this month he told the House of Commons that Glidewell had told him he "will not now be able to finalise his report this month, as he had hoped". It is understood that the target date is now May.

The delay is only the latest setback for the review, which was described by one source as "a complete mess".

The government has already pre-empted it by announcing a reorganisation of CPS areas and by pressing ahead with plans to introduce lay prosecutors.