Freedom of Information requests made by the BBC’s Panorama programme have discovered that last year police handed out almost 39,000 cautions to people who had been accused of causing actual bodily harm, and a further 700 people were not made to attend court on charges of causing grievous bodily harm.

Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, speaking in an edition of Panorama which will be broadcast next week said:

“I accept that what is needed is a coherent system across the board with one overarching scheme.

“That’s not to say that all out of court disposals should be dealt with by the prosecution service or all of them dealt with by the police but I would like one overarching scheme.”

Mr Starmer also added that he has stopped his prosecutors from giving a caution for anyone accused of an offence more serious than a common assault.

Magistrates have also said that they are worried people are avoiding being charged with serious crime.

John Thornhill, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, said:

“Our real concern is that out of court disposals are being used for offences which are serious enough to merit in our courts a high community penalty or a custodial sentence.

“There are many offenders out there committing serious offences who are getting away with a penalty that should be imposed in the courts.”

Panorama also found instances of burglary, child neglect, sexual assault and even rape which were dealt with by caution last year, even though they could merit a prisonsentence.

Simon Reed, the vice chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said:

“I think it’s about targets. I think it’s about making the system quicker and I think predominantly it’s about making the system cheaper bypassing the courts.

“It gives police officers the opportunity to detect more crime and I don’t think justice is being served and I think the public should be concerned about that.”

Claire Ward, the Justice Minister, also said in the programme:

“There is an opportunity for anybody who has a concern about the use of these out of court disposals to bring them forward. We are constantly keeping these sort of things under review.”