POLICE and Crown Prosecution Service bosses have defended the way they decided not to pursue a case relating to the death of a schoolboy in Southampton.

As reported by the Daily Echo, two men were arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm the day seven-year-old Blake Fowler was found injured at a city home.

The youngster later died at hospital and four months later in April 2012, the two men, Peter Meek and his brother Philip, were released with no further action.

This week a coroner slammed the way Blake was looked after by those who should have loved him the most adding that such was the “plethora of lies” given to police and medics surrounding how Blake came to be injured, the exact cause of his death may never be known.

This newspaper revealed how no file was ever passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by Hampshire police and that the view that there was not enough evidence to support a prosecution was relayed via telephone conversations.

But police chiefs and the CPS described such methods as “common place”.

In a joint statement, Hampshire police and the CPS Wessex said: “The police are responsible for assessing cases before referral to the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure the Full Code or Threshold Test can be met on the available evidence as appropriate to the circumstances of the case.

“The police are also responsible for taking ‘no further action’ in any case that cannot meet the appropriate evidential standard, without any formal referral to a prosecutor. That is what happened in this case.”

Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Hayes, who oversees policing matters in Hampshire, said the CPS provided charging decisions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

He added: “Whether a file should be submitted to the CPS is a matter for police investigators and the CPS to decide. This is a national policy based upon strict protocols that exist between them. I believe in this instance the threshold test was not met and a file was therefore not submitted.”

As reported, medics went to Cromarty Road in Lordshill, Southampton on December 3, 2011 when it is understood Blake suffered a serious head injury.

At the time, he was in the care of his step-father Peter Meek and was visiting the home of relatives when he sustained the injury that was to later prove fatal.

The next day, detectives arrested Peter Meek, a well-known amateur boxer in the city, and his brother Philip, then 21, on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm.

A post-mortem examination confirmed that Blake had died from head injuries but exactly how he came to suffer them that night has never been known.

On April 17 last year the two men were told that they would not face criminal proceedings in light of Blake’s death.