Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, how many of the cases of charges for assault on emergency workers was the public interest test cited as the reason for discontinuation.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold centrally retrievable data on the reasons for discontinuation at an offence level within its Case Management System (CMS) and associated Management Information System (MIS).

While the CPS applies the Code for Crown Prosecutors, including both the evidential and public interest tests, the specific reasons for decisions are recorded within individual case records rather than in a structured, searchable format.

Accordingly, the CPS is unable to provide the number of cases where the public interest test was cited as the reason for discontinuation in Assault on Emergency Worker cases. To obtain this information would require a manual review of individual case files.

However, to provide context on the volume of cases involved, the table below shows the number of offences for Assault on an Emergency Worker which were charged and reached a first hearing at the magistrates’ court over the last five calendar years under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018: