Millions wasted on charges that never make it to court

More than 1.4 million crime reports have been sent to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in the last five years.

But 180,000 of them were scrapped before they were processed by the courts, according to statistics released through Freedom of Information laws.

The dropped cases cost a minimum of £10 million to investigate and more than a million man hours.

MSPs have called for the Scottish justice system to be tightened after an Audit Scotland report found annual inefficiencies of up to £40m.

FOI figures released by the COPFS show that more than 56,000 cases were dropped because the Crown did not have sufficient evidence.

And more than 15,000 were shelved because of delays by the police. A further 2,400 cases were not pursued because of delays by the fiscal service.

More than 42,000 cases were stopped after prosecutors deemed further action to be disproportionate. TaxPayers Alliance campaign director Emma Boon said: “Every case that is dropped means that all the taxpayers money and time spent on investigating and preparing it has been utterly wasted.

“Cases dropped because of police delays are completely avoidable and cases that are dropped because of lack of evidence raise serious question on why they were filed in the first place.

“Taxpayers’ will be angry that time and money is being wasted on paperwork and court time that is never going to result in a conviction. This news will be a huge blow to the public’s confidence in the police’s willingness to tackle criminals head on.”

Major crimes can take years to investigate and can cost tens of thousands of pounds.

Even the smallest investigations, including the submission of a report to Crown officials, can take up to six hours at a cost of around £60 each, police say.

A spokesman for the Crown office said: “COPFS works constantly to ensure that our decisions are fully informed.”