Private prosecutions as a tool to fight corruption
Because private prosecutions are independent of the state, they can expose and remedy corruption at the heart of the state such as police corruption and judicial corruption.
In the 1975 case of Gouriet v Union of Post Office Workers Lord Diplock said that private prosecutions are “a useful constitutional safeguard against capricious, corrupt or biased failure or refusal of those authorities to prosecute offenders against the criminal law.”
In the 'Saffron Hill murder', a private prosecution led to the real culprit being caught, and so a miscarriage of justice corrected (the wrongly convicted man was given a reprieve).
In Fuseon Ltd v. Senior Courts Costs Office and Another [2020] Costs LR 251, Lane J re-affirmed (from para. 18) the importance of private prosecutions, particularly in complex financial or fraud cases, where the statutory authorities may not have the resources to pursue every meritorious case. In Mirchandani v. Lord Chancellor [2020] EWCA Civ 1260, Davis LJ noted again (at para. 79) that: ‘Parliament has decided that, in appropriate cases, private prosecutions serve a public interest’. In that case, where the issue was the costs of confiscation/enforcement proceedings, the court proceeded to note (at para. 80) that this public interest would be undermined if the prosecutor was not able to recover costs out of central funds. It is clear that what Parliament envisages is a compensatory scheme, as to assess costs by reference to another criteria would deter necessarily private prosecutions. This point was re-affirmed in Football Association Premier League and another v. Lord Chancellor [2021] EWHC 755 (QB) where Nicol J acknowledged again (at para. 44) the public interest in private prosecutions, particularly in the fields of fraud and intellectual property rights. This case confirmed that investigative costs could be recovered (as “costs in proceedings”) out of central funds, as without this provision, “private prosecutions would not get off the ground”.