Is there a wider prosecution problem

Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian writes:

Drumgold should have remembered the words of the ACT Prosecution Policy, which Sofronoff quoted in his report, “that the purpose of a criminal prosecution is not to obtain a conviction; it is to lay before a court what the prosecution considers to be credible evidence relevant to what is alleged to be a crime”. …

But what of accused people who do not have the good fortune to have the talented and honourable Steve Whybrow SC and all Bruce Lehrmann’s team of skilled and dedicated lawyers in their corner? Remember that when Lehrmann initially sought help from ACT Legal Aid, he says he was told by a lawyer there that Legal Aid would not challenge a complainant’s account of the facts as a pack of lies – only that they were mistaken. One can only wonder if there are people sitting in ACT jails because Legal Aid would not defend them properly or because prosecutors withheld critical evidence. …

Finally, we must acknowledge this is not solely an ACT issue. It is quite possible that all across the country zealous prosecutors are hitting targets for conviction rates by withholding evidence or playing other cute games with defence teams. Without an equivalent of a national Sofronoff inquiry, we can only point to anecdotal evidence of such abuses, but there is certainly plenty of that. Since I began reporting on this case, and on the Sofronoff inquiry, I have been deluged by barristers, solicitors, family and friends of alleged perpetrators of sexual offences with increasing numbers of anecdotal cases of apparent unfairness. Some I have investigated appear to have merit – these are for future articles. Some complaints seem baseless. There are enough of the former, however, to lead me to the conclusion that the pendulum of Australian justice may well have swung too far against alleged perpetrators.

While the columnist is Australian, and this occurred in Australia, it is worth reflecting how sure are we in New Zealand that prosecutors are not withholding evidence etc in an attempt to get a conviction?

Certainly an an anecdotal level, there are cases which go to trial, where jurors have said afterwards there was never any possibility of a conviction.