CPS January 2026 decision — walkthrough

Walkthrough of the Crown Prosecution Service's 20 January 2026 announcement that it would not pursue eleven additional charges relating to nine further babies, on the stated basis that 'the evidential test was not met.' The commentator analyses the significance: the same investigative methodology that produced the original convictions did not, when applied to additional candidate cases, clear the evidential threshold for prosecution. The piece notes the institutional context — three former Trust executives remain under separate gross-negligence-manslaughter investigation following their July 2025 arrests — and frames the decision as evidentially significant for any CCRC review of the existing convictions, since it constitutes the prosecuting authority's own assessment of where the methodology breaks down.