The importance of seeking out unused material in a criminal allegation | Howells Solicitors
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The importance of seeking out unused material in a criminal allegation

Howells Solicitors

18 Dec, 2017

It is vitally important that defence teams are pro active in seeking out the unused material in a criminal allegation.

The case of Liam Allan highlights the problems faced by those wrongly accused. At the initial stages the police should be gathering information in an impartial and scrupulous way. The law requires a disclosure officer to be appointed, who must prepare a schedule of all material gathered and analyse all that evidence to see what has to be disclosed to the defence lawyers.

As defence lawyers we carefully analyse the schedule to see what we believe should be disclosed. But at Howells we go further than that and carefully examine the evidence to see what else there may be that has been missed off the schedule. The clues are often there and often requires dogged determination to ensure that the material we require is served. The schedule and material served at the end of the process is often greater than the initial list.

It can make a difference to the entire case and as seen in Liam Allen’s case make the difference between a prosecuted trial or the case being withdrawn.

We at Howells will investigate your case for you to prevent this happening. This applies whether your case is being tried in the Crown Court or the Magistrates Court .

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