The headlines are buzzing with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) offering "investigative advice" to police regarding Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson. The public views this as progress. They see it as a sign of momentum—a tightening of the net around the powerful. They are wrong.
In reality, the moment the CPS steps in to offer "early advice" on high-profile probes, the clock starts ticking on the death of the case. This isn't a boost for the police; it is a defensive crouch by a legal system that has grown terrified of losing in public.
The Myth of the Cooperative Prosecution
The standard narrative suggests that when the CPS provides advice during an investigation, it ensures the evidence is "trial-ready." It sounds efficient. It sounds professional. It is actually a bureaucratic bottleneck designed to filter out risk before a jury ever gets to see a shred of evidence.
When the CPS gets involved at this stage, they aren't just checking the paperwork. They are setting a bar for "prospect of conviction" that is increasingly impossible to meet in complex cases involving historical allegations or powerful figures. By "advising" the police, they often tell them what not to pursue, effectively narrowing the scope of an investigation until it becomes a shadow of its original intent.
I have watched investigators spend years building cases, only to have a lawyer who has never interviewed a witness tell them the "public interest" doesn't justify the cost of a trial. This isn't law; it’s accounting.
The Hidden Buffer for the Elite
Why do we see this specific terminology—"investigative advice"—resurface whenever names like Andrew or Mandelson appear? Because it provides a convenient political shield.
If the police simply investigated and the CPS simply charged, the process would be transparently adversarial. Instead, we have this murky middle ground. If no charges are brought, the police can say, "We followed the advice of the CPS." The CPS can say, "The evidence provided by the police didn't meet the threshold."
Nobody is responsible. The buck doesn't stop; it just orbits the Room 101 of legal bureaucracy.
This "advice" loop serves as a vetting process that benefits the wealthy and the connected. While a common thief is charged based on a clear-cut statute, the elite are subjected to a multi-year feasibility study. The delay isn't a byproduct of the system; the delay is the system. It allows the news cycle to churn, memories to fade, and public outrage to dissipate.
The Evidentiary Threshold is a Moving Target
The "Full Code Test" requires a "realistic prospect of conviction." This is the most misunderstood phrase in the British legal system.
- The Objective Test: Would an objective jury convict?
- The Subjective Reality: Can we win this without looking bad?
In cases involving Epstein-adjacent figures, the CPS isn't just looking at the law. They are looking at the PR fallout of a failed prosecution. They are terrified of a repeat of the high-profile collapses that plagued the 2010s. Consequently, they use "investigative advice" to demand a level of corroboration that almost never exists in cases of sexual misconduct or historical corruption.
If you demand a "smoking gun" before you even allow a case to go to court, you aren't a prosecutor. You are a gatekeeper. The jury system was designed to handle ambiguity. When the CPS uses advice sessions to eliminate ambiguity, they are usurping the role of the citizen-juror.
Why the Police Should Work Alone
There is a fundamental tension that must exist between the police and the prosecutor. The police are the hunters; the prosecutors are the editors. When the editor starts writing the story with the author from chapter one, the tension vanishes.
We are told that early advice prevents "failed trials." This is a sanitized way of saying it prevents "uncomfortable trials." A trial that ends in an acquittal is not a failure of the system; it is the system functioning. A "failure" is when a case that has merit is strangled in a conference room in Rose Court because a lawyer thinks the witness might not be "likable" enough for a jury.
The Cost of the Risk-Averse Culture
The CPS has become a department of "No."
- Financial constraints: They lack the budget for a long-shot trial.
- Reputational fear: They hate losing the "big ones."
- Political pressure: Even if unintended, the proximity to the Home Office creates an atmosphere of caution.
By the time the "advice" phase is over, the investigation is often so sanitized and narrowed that it lacks the teeth to actually secure a conviction, leading to the very failure the CPS claimed they were trying to avoid.
Imagine a scenario where a detective finds a lead that requires international cooperation. Under a standard investigation, they pursue it. Under "CPS advice," they might be told that the likelihood of that lead producing a "conviction-critical" piece of evidence is low, so the resources shouldn't be spent. The lead dies. The case weakens.
Dismantling the "Public Interest" Argument
The CPS frequently hides behind the "Public Interest" limb of their code. They argue that if a prosecution is likely to fail, it is not in the public interest to spend taxpayer money on it.
This is a logical fallacy. It is always in the public interest to see justice tested in an open court when serious allegations are made against public figures. The public interest is not served by a secret determination that a case is "too hard." The cost of a trial is pennies compared to the cost of the total erosion of faith in the rule of law.
When people see the CPS "advising" the police for years on end regarding the same group of people, they don't see a thorough process. They see a protection racket.
The Unconventional Solution
We need to stop the "early advice" model for cases involving public office or high-level corruption.
The police should be mandated to complete their investigation independently. Once the file is handed over, the CPS should have a strict deadline to charge or drop. This eliminates the "advice" limbo where cases go to die.
Force the CPS to justify their decisions in writing, publicly, for every case they decline to prosecute after a police recommendation. No more hiding behind "ongoing advice."
If the evidence is thin, let a judge throw it out. If the witnesses are unreliable, let a defense barrister tear them apart. But stop letting lawyers in suits decide which parts of the truth the public is allowed to hear before the trial even begins.
The CPS isn't helping the police catch Andrew or Mandelson. They are teaching the police how to build a case that is safe enough for a risk-averse bureaucracy to handle. And "safe" is the opposite of "justice."
Stop cheering for the "advice." Start demanding an indictment.
The system doesn't need more consultation. It needs more courage.
