Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

Sir Augustus Stephenson and the Prosecution of Offences Act of 1884 207
with the regulations.
The regulations under that Act authorized the Director to assist prosecutors
or police authorities responsible for prosecutions by incurring special costs in
the preparation of scientific evidence, plans, models, and extra fees to counsel.
They were, however, remarkably vague in that they did not list the categories
of crime for which he would be responsible. Issued by the Secretary of State
in January 1880, they set out circumstances under which the Director might
intervene in prosecutions. Cases 'as appear to be of importance or difficulty, or
as from special circumstances, or the refusal or failure of a person to proceed
with a prosecution . . ,' 29 It was made clear in a Home Office circular to the
chairmen of Quarter Sessions that this function was intended 'not to supplant
but only to supplement the system now in use'. 30 It had, however, supplanted
the authority of the Treasury Solicitor as the principal civil service adviser to
the government on criminal justice affairs, even if a great deal was left to the
initiative of his successor. 31
It is clear that the role which Maule chose to adopt was consultative and
passive. Unlike Stephenson, he was no fighter. All the cases previously
referred to the Criminal Department of the Home Office for advice or help
were now referred directly to him. In cases where he thought prosecutions
should be instituted he merely referred them to the Treasury Solicitor in
exactly the same way as the Home Office staff had earlier done. Those
cases that had gone directly to the Treasury Solicitor, also went to the
Director, only to be returned to the Treasury Solicitor for action, since
the new Department of Public Prosecutions had no resources for actually
handling cases and made no attempt to create them. It was not a good solution
and it did not work.
In June 1883, urged on by the complaints of both Stephenson and his
own Home Office staff, 32 Harcourt, now Home Secretary, assembled a
departmental committee to reexamine the office of public prosecutor. 33
It carried out a humiliating investigation into the relaxed daily routine
of Maule and his small staff. It concluded that 'at present the Director
of Public Prosecutions is consulted and determines upon prosecutions but
takes no practical part in their conduct, a duty which is remitted by him to
the Solicitor of the Treasury'. 34 During his evidence Maule was able to offer
little defence of this position and betrayed a painful ignorance of practical
detail being unaware, for example, of his own department's costs or even of
29
'Rules as to Prosecutions under 42 & 43 Viet. c. 22, s. 8', Report (1884), appendix.
30
Ibid., appendix.
31
The Attorney-General remained, of course, the nominal political authority in such cases.
32
The failed prosecution of Hannah Dobbs, the 'Euston Square murderess', provided an outstanding
example. Maule refused to pursue Dobbs despite the pressure of both Stephenson and Howard Vincent,
Home Office H.O. 144 Series, Case 84111 (1879-80).
33
Its members were formidable, including Henry James, Farrer Herschell, Randolph Churchill, J. R.
Gorst and Henry Fowler.
34 Report (1884).