Outrageous decision,surely this can be challenged at a higher court?

I wonder if the case would have been dismissed if the victims were from the other emergency services? Hmm........

Could be, but the perpetrator still won't be convicted.

The appointed barrister was unable to attend....... What does that mean?

This is the worst case I have ever seen. Cannot an appeal against the action taken by this judge?. The judge should be named and shamed. Come on Federation this needs a lot of press cover to show how inefficient the CPS system is.

This is unbelievable & you can imagine if the boot was on the other foot & the three officers were the ones in the Dock. They would have found a barrister pdq imo. Come on Federation dig into your coffers & get a private prosecution out against this vile individual who clearly with that number of convictions needs to be incarcerated

The judge is an absolute disgrace. Why is the judge not being named and shamed.

Speaking as a barrister who both prosecutes and defends in the criminal courts, but also as an ex cop, all others commenting on this thread need to be reminded of the presumption of innocence, which means that the burden of proving a person guilty rests on the prosecution; ie, the State. If the State does not furnish the court with a prosecutor, and in a reasonable period of time, then the presumption of innocence operates to say that the accused is not guilty, and an acquittal will be ordered. If it was lack of defence counsel, then the same result is the right result. It is a fundamental principle of a fair trial that an accused has access to competent representation. If that is unavailable, trial cannot proceed. There is nothing unremarkable about what happened and is reported here, except that most of those interested in a police forum seem not to know or care that a stay for want of a prosecutor or defence is the correct outcome when there is no prosecutor or defence. If you don’t like that, next time you go to vote, remember who has been in government for the last near 13 years, and vote accordingly.

*nothing remarkable, obviously.

Whilst what you say is legally correct, I doubt that the judge would be so quick to dismiss if the victims were anyone else but Police. Imagine if the victim were a battered wife etc. Or a bame victim of a race hate assault. Or a victim of a transpobic attack. I doubt very much he or she would have even done the same if the victims had have been paramedics. I wouldn't be surprised if IOPC now look to find a way to apportion blame to Police for the failures of CPS! I could understand a dismissal of the charges if it were a case that the prosecution had repeatedly failed to be in a position to proceed. But on the face of it, it appears that the presiding judge ordered that not guilty verdicts be returned without at least allowing one adjournment.

A pity for Wayne Couzens then that he never had this judge and a barrister strike on. He'd be back prowling round off duty for his next Sarah Everard right now.

British police like to constantly criticize police in former colonies like Caribbean countries or India. Well in India or Jamaica you assault an officer you get a bloody good hiding. Then a jail sentence. For several years.

Spoken like a true 'wig for hire' Nothing to see here let's move on to the next fee and expenses.

You were a cop, were you Damian? Well, thank Christ I didn't have to follow you into the witness box.

Damian It is called the Criminal Justice System. But in this case the decision was criminal, and not a trace of Justice.

I wonder what the circumstances of the Barrister becoming 'unavailable' and what notice was given? I only say that because just about everyone on here must have had the experience of everyone and his dog being in court...except the defendant, and his solicitor waving a Doctors note about and saying his client wouldn't be coming out to play because he was 'sick'. It never seemed to matter how many times this occurred, the sick notes were never questioned and it always resulted in an adjournment. I do know that unless the police officer had been abducted by aliens or was dead, he was still expected to get himself into the 'box' on the required date, broken legs or not. Surely the Judge had other options than to decide the offenders were 'not guilty'? We know it's the courts that dispense justice...but this wasn't justice.

Quite correct sir up to a point and with a strict interpretation of the law and legal procedure. However the judge must well be aware of the breakdown in the Ministry of Justice and the total disaster that the current shower in power have visited upon it and the rest of the public service. Most lately the entire country. A missing barrister and a request for an adjournment is not denying justice but merely putting the case back into the creaking system for justice to prevail. Instead a criminal with multiple convictions has, along with his ilk, been given licence to escape the law and assault emergency workers. Mind you some of the comments on here,in response to your post, leave a lot to be desired and the posters might want to give their heads a wobble rather than “shooting from the hip at the messengerâ€쳌. Damien could have left everyone fulminating in ignorance..!

I think we all know that a different decision would’ve been made, if the victim had been one of their own brethren. No way in the world would a judge dismiss a case where another judge was the victim or any other high profile type mentioned here already. The judge needs naming it’s a public court process after all it’s not the secret family court where this kind of absurd decision making happens everyday to men being deprived of their children under the guise of ‘privacy’. Our British judiciary and legal system is little better than Irans, Russia, China or North Korea’s and cases like this make it a laughing stock not only to the rest of the world but to the criminal fraternity. No wonder criminals know it’s increasingly unlikely they will ever go to jail for any offence other than murder.