Damian Warburton is a crime specialist who now prosecutes upwards of 90% of his cases, almost all of which are in the Crown Court. He read his first degree in Law from 1999-2002, prior to which he was a police officer in the West Midlands. After a postgraduate law degree he joined Avon and Somerset in a police staff supervision role in Criminal Justice, overseeing the quality of files before they were passed to the CPS, and was PIP 3 trained in the Investigation of Serious Crime. In 2005 he became a university lecturer in law, since when, through four universities, he has held various academic appointments, including Head of Law.

In common with almost all independent criminal barristers, his experience in practice began in defence, but since shifting to predominantly prosecution work, and therefore working closely with OICs, in what by the time of trial is a process with a very tight timetable, the benefit to police organisations that would come from having much earlier input from a trial advocate became clear.

This is all the more so because, owing to the years of the recruitment freeze during austerity, most police organisations now have a high proportion of 'young in service' officers, and only a limited opportunity for those officers to gain insight into trial preparation before having to do so on a live case. The Criminal Procedure Rules make clear that the Overriding Objective is to deal with cases justly, which includes acquitting the innocent and convicting the guilty. An acquittal is the right result when the defendant is innocent, but the burden and standard of proof means that a guilty person is nevertheless *entitled* to an acquittal when the prosecution hasn't done its job properly, which in this context means having failed to persuade the jury so that they are sure of guilt. In an environment in which the burden of proof remains on the prosecution, in almost all cases from start to finish, the importance of getting it right first time every time is therefore obvious.

Damian has developed a training package for OICs, which can be varied according to the experience-level of the officer group per occasion, and the requirements that supervision/management have identified the prioritisation of which would be of most value locally in the context of the area of work that group is engaged.

These can include -

• The role of the OIC from incident to trial

• Offence-specific points to prove, and what that means for avoiding handing the defence the opportunity to make a 'no case to answer submission' at trial
• homicide and the established violence offences
• strangulation, DV, and coercive/control offences
• sexual offences (modern and historic)
• child sexual offences: committed against children, and committed by children
• image-based offences, attribution, and the proper use of SHPOs
• substance offences: possession and distribution
• property offences: dishonesty
• property offences: damage
• weapons: possession and threats
• offences based in encouragement/incitement
• Joint enterprise: mere presence vs participation

• Understanding the Code for Crown Prosecutors

• RIC, and Bail applications
• what information the court needs from the police to assist its determination of the application
• what information and opinions the court can do without (so don't waste your time)

• CPIA: unused material: the importance of disclosure and the exceptions to it

• The Rules of Evidence
• Relevance and admissibility
• What the caution means at trial: adverse inferences
• Special warnings
• The exclusion of confession evidence
• Hearsay
• Bad Character
• Special Measures

• Defence Case Statements: their significance to the trial process and what action to take upon receipt of the DCS.

• Lessons that must be learned from more than a century of miscarriages of justice: from Adolf Beck to Andrew Malkinson.

The purpose of OIC training is to help ensure that an investigation is fair to all concerned; that unmeritorious allegations are identified early; that when a file goes to the CPS it is in the best state it can be for achieving charge; and that for cases that are charged the criminal process that follows (whether a guilty plea and sentence, or a trial) has the right police input so that the prosecution, defence, and the court have what they need at all stages.

Case studies based on properly-anonymised Crown Court experiences will be used to show why prosecutions succeeded, and why others did not, but if senior officers want any specific ongoing investigations to be reviewed as part of the service, then that too is offered, for which organisational vetting and a confidentiality undertaking is welcomed.