Theft: Prosecutions

Miss McIntosh
To ask the Solicitor-General if she will request the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the policy of the Crown Prosecution Service on prosecutions for offences of theft from shops.

The Solicitor-General
There is no discrete CPS policy on prosecutions for shop theft. Decisions on whether to prosecute a person for offences of theft from a shop, in common with all decisions on prosecution, are made in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors which provides general principles to be applied when balancing public interest factors for and against prosecution.

The Code for Crown Prosecutors is currently under review and is the subject of a public consultation exercise which closes on 11 January 2010.