Lawful commencement, limitation and initial details

Start with the document and the person who can issue it

Commencement of proceedings means the legally effective start of the prosecution. It is different from service, the first hearing, and commencement of a new Act. Service is the required delivery of a document to a recipient. A hearing date does not prove when proceedings began, and a missing document does not automatically establish that no valid proceedings exist. Obtain the initiating document and the court record before advising on a defect.

Criminal Procedure Rules (CrimPR) Part 7 recognises four starting situations. An informationGlossary termInformation (criminal proceedings) is the formal allegation presented to the magistrates' court to obtain a summons or warrant under Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 (MCA) s 1. A summons is the court's command to attend. A warrant authorises arrest; the additional statutory conditions for a warrant must be established, rather than using arrest simply because a prosecutor prefers it. The application identifies the offence, supports any applicable time limit and supplies any required consent to prosecute.

An authorised prosecutorGlossary termAuthorised prosecutor has the statutory power under Criminal Justice Act 2003 ss 29–30 to issue a written chargeGlossary termWritten charge with a requisitionGlossary termRequisition, or with a single justice procedure notice where that procedure is available. The charge contains the accusation; the requisition requires attendance at the stated court and time. A requisition is issued by the prosecutor, not by a magistrate after an information. A private individual does not acquire this issuing power merely by deciding to prosecute.

The other situations are a person charged while in custody and an additional allegation made against a defendant who attends, or is due to attend, court in response to another allegation. The police-charge route carries the police-stage record into court, but the court must still check the accusation and its own powers. An additional charge must be properly formulated and routed; it is not automatically absorbed into whatever procedure already applies to the first charge.

The single justice procedure is a separate statutory route for eligible adult summary, non-imprisonable cases. It can permit disposal on the papers by a single magistrate where its conditions are satisfied, including cases with no response. A not-guilty response or a request for a hearing takes the case out of paper disposal. It is not authority to conduct ordinary adult either-way plea before venue by correspondence. Do not confuse an existing written summary procedure with the separate, commencement-dependent 2022 reforms to either-way proceedings. CrimPR rr 7.1–7.4 and 24.9; MCA s 16A; CJA 2003 ss 29–30.

A charge must identify the offence in ordinary language, identify the legislation creating it where applicable, and give enough particulars of the alleged conduct to make the accusation clear. The solicitor checks the alleged act, date or period, place, complainant or property, mental element and any feature changing classification. A typographical error, an unclear allegation and absence of a required prosecutorial consent are not interchangeable defects. Identify the defect, the relevant power and its consequence; do not announce automatic acquittal merely because a document is imperfect.

Private prosecution: a right with safeguards, not a way around scrutiny

Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 s 6 preserves private prosecution, subject to the Director of Public Prosecutions' power to take over. A non-public applicant for a summons has the additional disclosure and certification duties in CrimPR r 7.2(6). These include material about earlier applications or proceedings and information potentially adverse to the application. The court must be able to assess whether process should issue. Any offence-specific consent requirement remains relevant. POA 1985 s 6; CrimPR r 7.2.

Case application — R (Gujra) v CPS [2012] UKSC 52. Gujra brought private prosecutions arising from alleged assaults and threats. The CPS took them over and discontinued them because the evidence did not meet its reasonable-prospect-of-conviction test. The question was whether applying that test unlawfully undermined the statutory right of private prosecution. The Supreme Court majority upheld the policy: s 6(2) gives the Director a takeover discretion, and prospects of conviction are a legitimate consideration. The policy must not be applied rigidly without considering the individual case. The private right survives, but does not immunise a weak prosecution from takeover. Application: advise a private prosecutor about evidence and disclosure, not just how to obtain a summons. A defendant facing private proceedings can invite CPS scrutiny; discontinuance is not guaranteed merely because the prosecution is private. Judgment, facts at [3]–[9], reasoning at [35]–[37].

Limitation: identify the offence, trigger and legally effective step

For an ordinary summary offence, MCA s 127 normally requires the information to be laid within six calendar months of the offence, unless legislation supplies another rule. For the written-charge route, establish when the charge was legally issued. Do not substitute the date of police interview, the defendant's receipt of the requisition, or the eventual hearing. A charge issued in time is not necessarily late because service or the hearing occurs later; questions about proper issue, service, delay and fairness remain separate. CrimPR r 7.2 expressly requires a prosecutor seeking process to demonstrate compliance with any applicable limit. MCA s 127; CJA 2003 s 30; CrimPR r 7.2.

There is no general six-month prosecution limit for an indictable offence merely because it is eventually tried by magistrates. In particular, the special low-value treatment of shoplifting or criminal damage for court routing does not, by itself, make s 127 a six-month bar to the underlying theft or damage charge. First classify the offence for the particular statutory purpose. “Summary for this procedure” does not mean “summary for every purpose”. MCA ss 22, 22A and 127; current prosecution guidance, ‘Offences requiring particular care’.

A specific exception is common assault or battery amounting to domestic abuse, under Criminal Justice Act 1988 s 39A. For offences committed on or after 28 June 2022, proceedings must begin both within two years of the offence and within six months of the victim’s first qualifying statement or video-recorded interview. A qualifying statement is the victim’s witness statement intended for possible use as evidence and supplied to a constable or an authorised recipient. The alternative is the prescribed interview of the victim by police or an authorised person, recorded on video with a view to admission as evidence in chief. An informal telephone report is not automatically that trigger. The domestic-abuse definition requires both people to be at least 16 and personally connected, with abusive behaviour. Personal connection includes current or former spouses, civil partners or intimate partners, people who have agreed to marry or enter a civil partnership, relatives, and people with the relevant parental relationship to the same child. Abuse includes physical or sexual abuse, threatening or violent conduct, controlling or coercive conduct, economic abuse and psychological or emotional abuse. A disagreement between strangers does not qualify simply because it happened in a home. The charge here must still be common assault or battery; the wider definition does not turn every form of domestic abuse into that offence. Domestic Abuse Act 2021 ss 1–2. CJA 1988 s 39A(1)–(7), inserted by PCSC Act 2022 s 49; SI 2022/520 reg 5(f).

Worked contrast. An ordinary summary assault and a qualifying domestic assault occur on the same day. The ordinary assault normally follows the six-month offence-date rule. For the qualifying domestic assault, a first qualifying statement given later starts the additional six-month period, but cannot move the final date beyond two years after the offence. Calculate both limits and use the earlier expiry. A second statement does not restart the period because the statute uses the first qualifying date. For example, an offence on 10 January 2024 and a first qualifying statement on 20 November 2025 produce candidate limits of 10 January 2026 and 20 May 2026: the two-year limit on 10 January 2026 controls. The example assumes no different statutory rule or disputed trigger.

Practical record: write down the alleged offence date, the provision governing limitation, the trigger evidence, the legally effective commencement event and its date. Check any offence-date saving before applying a later reform. This prevents a correct duration being calculated from the wrong event.

Initial details: enough for informed first-hearing decisions

Initial details of the prosecution caseGlossary termInitial details of the prosecution case, often called IDPC, are the early prosecution material required by CrimPR Part 8. They help the court and defence address plea, venue, bail and case management. They are not the complete trial file, and are not the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 unused-material disclosure regime. Unused material is material gathered in the investigation which the prosecution does not rely on as part of its case; its disclosure test and later process belong to Chapter 5 (Case Management, PTPH, Indictment and Disclosure).

Under r 8.2, the prosecutor must provide initial details to the court officer as soon as practicable and, at the latest, by the beginning of the first-hearing day. Where the defendant requests them, the prosecutor must serve them on the defendant within that timetable. Without a request, the prosecutor must make them available to the defendant at or before that point. “The hearing is not until the afternoon” does not change the beginning-of-day deadline. Nor does the duty wait for a not-guilty indication.

Rule 8.3 distinguishes the minimum content according to custody status. Where the defendant was in police custody immediately before the first hearing, the minimum is a summary of the circumstances of the offence and the defendant's criminal record, if any. In other cases the required package also includes the defendant's interview account, available written witness statements and exhibits material to plea, allocation or sentence, and available victim-impact information. The reduced custody minimum recognises the short time available; it does not authorise misleading presentation or compel uninformed advice. A case may need more information for a particular fair decision even when the minimum list has been supplied. CrimPR rr 8.2–8.3.

If the prosecutor introduces information at the hearing which has not been served, r 8.4 requires the court to allow the defendant sufficient time to consider it before it is used. This is a practical safeguard, not an automatic dismissal. Identify the missing item and why it matters; request service, time for a private consultation, and, where necessary, a proportionate adjournment or suitable directions. Avoid demanding the entire later disclosure exercise merely to postpone a hearing whose immediate decisions can fairly be made.

Worked example — Nadia. Nadia receives a one-line allegation of assault. At court, a new witness account alleges that she used a bottle. That changes the factual seriousness and may affect the exact charge, venue and bail submissions. Her solicitor asks to see the account and takes instructions before advising on a plea or responding to the new allegation. The remedy is informed consideration and appropriate directions, not a guessed guilty plea and not an automatic claim that the prosecution has collapsed.

Recall before moving on. Explain why a requisition is not a summons, and why timely issue is not the same question as proper service. Then identify the decision affected by Nadia's missing material. Repair: return to the relevant starting route or r 8.4; do not answer “disclosure” without explaining what must be provided and when.