Hi I could really do with some advise an incident occured at…

Thanks.

The short answer is that you cannot just not press charges but there are things that you can do about this.

If you have made a statement then the case is no longer yours. A statement is just evidence like any other. It does not have to be in written form. Even a oral declaration to a police officer is evidence. Once evidence is obtained by the Crown you cannot withdraw it from them.

What you can do is tell the prosecution that you don't want to support any further prosecution. This is where the complication lies.

I realise that the background to this has nothing to do with you and is not of your creation but it might help you to understand the position.

Traditionally when complainants said that they were reluctant the prosecution was dropped. That has encouraged abuse from some sections of society.

Sadly, genuine victims of domestic abuse are not the only people who do call the police to domestic incidents. Some people, and it's not only women, seem to use the police as a mediation service and call them to almost every argument in the house. Also, some people make reports to the police knowing that they never intended to give evidence but just to get their partner out of the house for the evening.

This has led to understandable frustration amongst police officers. To deal with that they have turned to a policy of summonsing a reluctant witness.

They do not summons in every case. It's fair to say that sometimes people are allowed to withdraw. It is really difficult to tell what could happen here. He is on police bail probably for them to get CPS advice so not already charged. This is the first time that you've done this which is always very helpful. You have to remember that the police will have families on their radar that have called them literally scores of times and then withdrawn. Its quite unlikely that they will see you as a time waster but they may see you as a vulnerable person.

I have to say that if I made policy we would picked the whole issue of domestic abuse up and drop it down in the family court. However, I don't and we are stuck with the current nonsense. The only reason I think that they may pursue this is that, if this case is reviewed by one of the PC lunatics in CPS, there is huge aggravation. They will say that you are dependent on him financially. There were three young children in the house if not actually present. This case involves kicking although not with shod feet so at least they cannot say he used a weapon. I know that its just a domestic squabble and we all have these rows all the time but thats how it will be seen.

There are some CPS reviewers who are militant, or just fail to consider the case properly, and will summons in circumstances where they should not.

If they do summons then you will have to think about what you want to do. Failing to answer a summons is a contempt of court in principle although it would not be prosecuted. I've only ever seen one prosecution for contempt arising from failing to answer a summons and that involved a person who has been a real drain on police resources.

What they might do is issue a witness warrant for your arrest to put you before the court to give evidence. There is about a 1% chance of that happening. That is preserved for people who are very well known to the constabulary.

In any event, there is a bit of a debate over whether or not attending court and refusing to give evidence amounts to a contempt. I have to say that I do not think that it does. The summons binds you to attend the courthouse building. It does not force you to go into the witness box and, unless you are in breach of a court order there is no contempt of court. For what it's worth, I prosecute fairly regularly and if a witness just refuses to go into the witness box I have no means of forcing them to do so.

Depending on what he has said the other option may be to offer him a caution although I would have expected them to have done that by now. Also, I have to say that if I were acting for him then I would not let him accept a caution because you are reluctant so its not likely to lead to a conviction.

Hope this helps. Please let me know if you need more information.

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You can but its not going to change anything.

In fact, its probably best to do nothing. They know you are reluctant anyway now so they will get a summons if they intend to anyway.

Its really just a waiting game now.