CPS withheld evidence, judges find

Three of Britain's most senior judges launched a scathing attack on the Crown Prosecution Service yesterday after 20 environmental activists had their sentences quashed.

The judges at the Court of Appeal in London said prosecutors had deliberately withheld evidence about an undercover officer, which could have been used by the defence. The 20 were prosecuted in December for conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station.

But it later emerged that a police officer, Mark Kennedy, had infiltrated the group.