who prosecutes criminal offences within the english legal system
Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public prosecuting agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
English law Since 1189, English law has been a common law, not a civil law system; in other words, no comprehensive codification of the law has taken place and judicial precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive. This may be a legacy of the Norman conquest of England, when a number of legal concepts and institutions from Norman law were introduced to England. In the early centuries of English common law, the justices and judges were responsible for adapting the system of writs to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law. An example is the Law Merchant derived from the "Pie-Powder" Courts, named from a corruption of the French pieds-poudrÃ©s ("dusty feet") implying ad hoc marketplace courts.