What happens after charge and before the case gets to trial?
Before the trial is fixed the prosecutor will: • Ask the police to contact you and find out when you would be unable to come to court to give evidence; and • Serve all the evidence including copies of the statements to the defence lawyer. Where possible the prosecutors will try to ‘agree’ your evidence with the defence lawyer. This means that defence do not want to question your evidence and agree that your statement can be read out in court instead of you attending. If the defendant pleads not guilty the defence will serve a statement outlining their defence to the prosecution. The defence will also start to build the defence case by evaluating all the prosecution evidence against the defendant and investigating to see if there are any witnesses that could help their case in court.
