Private prosecutions are on the rise in England and Wales as victims turn to alternative routes to justice amid police inaction, according to legal experts. The trend has seen a doubling of cases between 2016 and 2021, with private prosecutions now accounting for a quarter of all magistrates' court cases in 2024.
The case of Carol, a traffic manager from Exeter, illustrates the phenomenon. After her ex-boyfriend Jiro Wilson stole £10,000 from her, police referred her to a national fraud hotline and never followed up. Three other women who had also been defrauded by Wilson faced similar indifference from law enforcement. They collectively lost £46,000 to Wilson, who spent the money on escorts, dining and motorbikes.
Frustrated, the women hired a solicitor and a private investigator, Simon Davison, to bring a private prosecution. Davison, a former police detective, specialises in such cases, which are heard in the same courts as Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) cases and can result in prison sentences. The judge in the case deemed the offences so serious that the CPS took over, leading to Wilson's conviction for fraud and a six-year prison sentence in June 2023.
Legal experts warn that the rise in private prosecutions reflects a failure of the state to provide adequate justice. The Ministry of Justice does not maintain a public record of such cases, but one law firm reported that numbers more than doubled between 2016 and 2021. Critics argue this creates a two-tier system where only those who can afford to pay for justice can access it.
