mustbe - the CPS are not a perfect organisation. There are some great prosecutors, and there are also some crap ones who know that they will never be pulled up on their lack of work because, ultimately, the prosecution get an awful lot of leeway from the court. That is because there is only one prosecuting body for mainstream criminal work, whereas there are thousands of defence firms. If a defence firm cocks up they run the risk of being sacked by their client and having costs awarded against them by the court. If a CPS lawyer/branch cock up they can't be sacked and the costs come out of the public purse anyway. They might get a shouting at, but the person standing in court is highly unlikely to be the person responsible for the cock-up so it is likely to be shrugged off.
Because defence lawyers work for private firms, albeit under contracts to provide public defence, they are much more personally invested in getting it right. Where deadlines aren't met, it is generally the CPS who fail to meet them. Where documents aren't served it is generally the CPS who haven't served them. Not always, but more often than not.
Crap or dishonest defence lawyers tend to sink to the bottom. Crap or dishonest prosecutors get carried by their good and honest colleagues.
They are also working in non-ideal circumstances because the government keep bringing in all sorts of new initiatives that make fuck all difference to the running of the court system but sound good on paper. So the CPS are constantly being expected to change the way they do things. This means that things get lost in the system or just not done in time.
It is absolutely impossible for me to make more than a broad stab at some of the possible issues in your case but here goes:
- Police report - it might well have been in the original file handed to the CPS, but for some reason never actually copied or disclosed to the defence until so late in the day that the judge decided it would be unfair to admit it. This would mean that the defence barrister had absolutely nothing in his hand to gainsay what his client was asserting. I think this unlikely as it would presumably be a fairlly key piece of rebuttal evidence and judges tend to take a robust view of even very late service of documents.
Another possibility is that there was some sort of defect in the document leading the judge to refuse to allow it to be relied upon - there may have been some sort of credible assertion that the report had been tampered with, possibly typed up after the allegation was made or something along those lines. Again, it would be unusual.
A third possibility, and I mean this as nicely as possible, is that you have misunderstood/missed some key issue re: this document. I mean no disrespect when I say that you have an imperfect understanding of the mechanics of a criminal trial. I have an imperfect understanding of them! And any lawyer who says they know every single little bit of procedure and legislation without having to look it up is lying, I'm afraid! It is a complicated system and barristers are surgically attached to their copies of Archbold (legal bible) for a reason.
- Lying by defence barrister. I think this spectacularly unlikely. I strongly suspect that you are once again imperfectly processing something pretty standard, albeit incredibly confusing to hear. A barrister puts the defence case to the witnesses. Anything the defendant is relying upon MUST be put to the witness. So if the defendant says "It is a lie" then the barrister must put it to the witness that it is a lie so that they can respond. If something isn't put to the witness that the defendant ultimately relies upon then the witness would be recalled to give them a chance to respond to it. What you are hearing is the defence barrister filtering the defendant's case.
I have very, very rarely come across an overtly dishonest advocate who has actually got away with it. I can think of one solicitor that openly lied in court about a procedural matter. He was called on it and given a major public kicking by the judge. I would imagine that was very far from the end of what happened to him. I also came across a relatively inexperienced prosecutor who lied to the court. She was clearly out of her depth and thrown into a panic when the case didn't pan out as she had expected. She was reported to the bar council. That is it, for 11 years.
For a defence barrister to get away with actually lying about something, you would have to have a dishonest defence barrister, an incompetent prosecution barrister and a crap judge, all in one trial. This would be highly unusual. In the nicest possible way, I suspect there is more too it than you have been able to ascertain, and it is a shame no-one has been able to take you through this and make sure you do understand. That is not to say you would be happy with, or agree with, the explanation, but at least you would have things clear.
- Sleeping juror. This should have been dealt with. I have had this twice and it was dealt with swiftly and robustly on both occasions.
You may be right. You may have been spectacularly unlucky and ended up in a case with two dishonest or incompetent advocates, an incompetent judge and a disinterested jury. This would be a devastating situation. But what is more likely is that no-one has taken the time to make sure that you understand how the various bits of law have worked together to produce the result you didn't want. I would have thought that it would be of some comfort to know that, even if you found yourself coming out of the system without the outcome you had hoped for, it was because your case was effectively caught in all the various safety nets in place to ensure that every case is tested in the most rigorous way, rather than because everyone got it wrong. Unfortunately, if that was the case, no-one has answered your questions and there is no way of knowing exactly what happened.