UK prosecutors drop charges against Harvey Weinstein

In 2022, the prosecutors had authorised two charges of indecent assault against the former Hollywood producer.

Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will not face charges of indecent assault in Britain, prosecutors say.

In June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had authorised London’s Metropolitan Police Service to file two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in relation to an alleged incident that occurred in London in 1996. The accuser was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

On Thursday, the CPS said it decided to discontinue proceedings because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

“Following a review of the evidence in this case, the CPS has decided to discontinue criminal proceedings against Harvey Weinstein,” said Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counterterrorism division.

“The CPS has a duty to keep all cases under continuous review, and we have decided that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction,” he added.

After the revelations against him in the United Kingdom emerged, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that reportedly took place from the 1980s to 2015. Unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty of rape allegations and jailed for 23 years in the United States in 2020 in a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

But in April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s conviction on sex crime charges in a shock reversal.

The Court of Appeals found the trial judge erred in admitting the testimony of additional women who were allegedly abused by Weinstein but who were not named in the charges brought against him, and it ordered a new trial.

He could face a retrial as early as November.

In July, prosecutors in New York also announced that authorities were investigating “additional violent sexual assaults” allegedly carried out by Weinstein that were not subject to a statute of limitations.