---

Misconduct in Public Office: Prosecutions

Answer

The number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for misconduct in a Public Office under Common Law, in England and Wales, from 2005 to 2010 (latest available) can be viewed in the following table:

Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for 'Misconduct in a public office'¹,² England and Wales, 2005 to 2010³,4
	Proceeded against
2005	10
20065	8
2007	21
20086	12
2009	3
2010	3
¹ Is an offence under common law.
² Defendants proceeded against for conspiring, aiding or abetting a public official to commit Misconduct in a Public Office are excluded from the data in the above table.
³ The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
4 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used,
5 Figures provided for 2006 are the result of a validation process between MoJ and the courts.
6 Excludes data for Cardiff magistrates court for April, July, and August 2008.
Source:
Justice Statistics Analytical Services in the Ministry of Justice

Annual court proceedings data for 2011 are planned for publication in the spring of 2012.No general estimate has been made of costs of prosecuting this offence each year. No central record is maintained by the Crown Prosecution Service or for the public purse as a whole of the costs of prosecuting specific offences at this level of detail.An estimate is available for average Crown court costs of prosecutions related to misconduct in public office, for 2009-10 and 2010-11. These were £427,000 and £422,000 respectively, based on a five-hour sitting day.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

81417; 536 c577-8W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Misconduct Prosecutions Public service

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk