Court Warnings

Nowadays, it's quite rare to get a witness summons to appear at court. Current CPS and ultimately government thinking, seems to be that court trials are too much hassle. The onus is definately on guilty pleas and offenders are rewarded for doing so. However, every now and then, there comes an incident that is so serious, that the offender must be brought to justice (I mean proper justice, not some fixed penalty ticket that he wont pay!)
Before we get to that stage, the Police must have prepared a water tight case. The evidence must have past the 'threshold' test, whatever that is! It must then be presented to a 'grown up', known as the gatekeeper. If the gatekeeper thinks the evidence is good enough, he allows the officer to speak to the 'very grown up' CPS Lawyer. The CPS person, will do their utmost to avoid taking the job to court, by sending the file back with a lot of silly questions, that if they had read the thing properly in the first place, they would have found the answer to themselves! Once you have made it simple and bleeding obvious and return the file to them, then some tough decisions will have to be made. Is it in the public interest to go to court? Well, usually yes it is. So the long process of arranging a trial begins.
Now, despite the fact that the Police have to hand the completed file to CPS asap, you can't expect them to read the thing thoroughly. Hence, every single person who is mentioned on the file, will be warned to attend court for the trial. In some cases this can be dozens of people. I can guarantee that the court date will be arranged, when I am on a rest day (with plenty of advanced warning, so that I can't claim overtime!)
As a Police officer, quite often, there is not a lot of evidence I can give. It is usually a case of, "Got sent to a shoplifter. Went to the store, security told me a bloke knicked a packet of biscuits. I then arrested him and took him back to the station. I interviewed him and he went no comment". Now, nothing very contentious there. However, I will still attend court and hang around for a bit, until the defence and CPS get their heads together and decided that they will accept my evidence as it is written and no need for cross examination.
Why couldn't that decision have been made weeks/months ago. I've no doubt there is a bit of brinkmanship going on, but this is ridiculous. I am a person. I have a private life. You don't see too many court cases in the evening and at weekends, do you? Fine, if I have to actually give evidence, then I don't mind. However, I can't remember the last time I did!