A GRIEVING widow says she feels cheated after an administrative blunder means no one will be prosecuted for an accident which killed her husband.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has overhauled its procedure for dealing with fatal road accidents as a direct result of the failure in the case of Derek Smith.

Mr Smith, 42, was killed when his motorbike was in collision with a van on his way home to Chilton, County Durham, in November 2002.

A police file sent to the CPS initially indicated there might be enough evidence to start proceedings for causing death by dangerous driving.

When the file was reviewed more thoroughly, it was decided that driving without due care and attention would be a more appropriate charge. But by that time, the six months time limit after the alleged offence had expired and no prosecution could take place.

Mr Smith's widow, Nancy, a 43-year-old mother-of-three, said: "I feel cheated that nobody will be paying for the accident that killed my husband."

The CPS arranged a high-level meeting with Mrs Smith and offered a full apology and explanation.

She had a solicitor, Lawrence Petterson, at the meeting, but when she asked for the CPS to pay her legal costs, they refused.

Mr Petterson said he feels the CPS has acted unreasonably and added: "Mrs Smith has been treated entirely unsympathetically. It's compounded the error and she's very, very upset."

Mrs Smith said: "I want everybody to know how the justice system works, or doesn't work in this case."

David Chadwick, head of the CPS in the south of County Durham, said he had never known a case like this and repeated the apology to Mrs Smith.

He said that the CPS had not received the file from the police until five-and-half months after the accident.

But he said new procedures, which involve keeping a daily track on progress on similar cases and working with the police to avoid late file submissions, should ensure such a situation never happens again.

Mr Chadwick added that said the CPS have no facility for paying legal expenses.