MONTHS of CPS failures led to the collapse of a trial of a man accused of being a stalker and a voyeur, York Magistrates Court heard.

The alleged victim cried in court and asked if she should call the police if Dominic Thomas Welsh, 31, broke the law in future.

She was among 10 witnesses who attended court to give evidence against him. District judge Adrian Lower set aside two days to hear the trial.

Mr Welsh, who had been remanded in prison for five weeks at the request of the CPS, was freed. He had denied all charges.

The CPS has offered to apologise to the woman. It has launched an internal review.

The district judge said: "These are serious charges. It is clearly the prosecution's fault. There cannot be a fair trial."

He formally acquitted Mr Welsh, of Doncaster Road, Selby.

The prosecution service had approved charges against Mr Welsh of stalking the woman between December and February by phoning her and going to her house, and voyeurism during the same period by secretly filming her for his sexual gratification.

The CPS had also alleged he had committed two offences on bail. He was charged with stalking the woman between April and June by going to her place of work and staring through its windows and breaching a non-molestation order made by the Family Court to protect the woman.

For three months, ever since his first court appearance, despite three court orders made on three different days and several requests from the defence lawyers for information, the CPS failed to tell the defence details of its case against Mr Welsh, York Magistrates Court heard.

The district judge said throughout the CPS did not provide any explanation for the lack of information. Nor did it answer any of the defence emails.

Chris Hartley, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor, CPS Yorkshire and Humberside said:

“We were very disappointed at the outcome of this case and we would like to apologise to the complainant for the distress caused.

“We have immediately begun a full and thorough review of the circumstances in order to understand why we were not able to fully respond to the defence submissions that were accepted by the District Judge and to identify any lessons to be learned so that we can ensure this does not happen again.

“When this review is completed, we will be writing to the complainant to provide a full explanation.”