Quote Originally Posted by Turnup View Post
The letter you have, while providing some comfort, is unfortunately only an opinion and not binding on anyone. It is also entirely possible that since 1998 those opinions have changed. I think it will take a court case to resolve this.

I presume that NYP cannot simply seize these items and retain them in the long term, they can only seize them as evidence of a possible crime. Therefore they must either prosecute the alleged offence or return them to their rightful owners.
You would be wrong if you said the letter had no effect.

The way it would work is IF the CPS decide to prosecute, you immediately judicially review the decision as a breach of legitimate expectation based on the letter (and the CPS own guidance which is freely available online). Public bodies, and that included the CPS, can't simply say they will do A, and then without telling anyone go and do B. That's not me saying "I don't think they should be allowed to do that", that's me saying "there is a mass of case law saying they can't do that".

You DO NOT try to use the letter as a defence in a criminal trial. I don't think that would work although I'm not a great expert on criminal procedure. You have to attack the decision to prosecute.

I would expect the judicial review to be successful with the result that the decision to prosecute would be quashed.