The Bar Council has accused the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) of deliberately acting against the public interest by trying to keep lucrative cases in-house, irrespective of whether they could be better handled externally.

The body has today (25 February) published a leaked CPS email which it argues shows how the CPS has adopted deliberate practices not to instruct the best advocate for a given case if it is in the best financial interests of the CPS to keep the work in-house.