PC (Belize) A witness identified the accused only making the link between the man he knew as R and the accused as the result of an improper leading question by prosecuting counsel. There had been no identification parade as required under Belize law and the judge should have ‘warn[ed] the jury of the dangers of identification without a parade and should have explained to them the potential advantage of an inconclusive parade to a defendant such as the appellant. For these reasons, he should have explained, this kind of evidence was undesirable in principle and the jury would require to approach it with great care’ and ‘pointed out to the jury that [because of counsel’s leading question] they required to take even greater care in assessing Adolphus’ evidence that it was the appellant who had shot the deceased’ The need in recognition cases for an appropriate Turnbull direction is not diminished. Lord Rodger of Earlsferry referred to ‘the potential advantage of an inconclusive parade to a defendant such as the appellant.
Judges:
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Citations:
[2003] UKPC 40, (2003) 137 SJ 692, (2003) 62 WIR 18
Links:
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Turnbull and Another etc CCA 9-Jun-1976
The defendants appealed against their convictions which had been based upon evidence of visual identification.
Held: Identification evidence can be unreliable, and courts must take steps to reduce injustice. The judge should warn the jury of . .
Cited by:
Cited – Langford and Another v The State PC 11-May-2005
(Dominica) The appellants appealed convictions for together having kicked a man to death. They said the convictions were founded on unreliable identification evidence.
Held: The judge had made several misdirections, as to the reliability of . .
Cited – Ebanks (Jurt) v The Queen PC 16-Feb-2006
(Jamaica) The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder saying that identification evidence had been wrongly admitted and also if that appeal failed against the sentence of death. Though the witness knew the defendant, an identification . .
Cited – John v The State PC 16-Mar-2009
(Trinidad and Tobago) The defendant appealed his conviction for murder. The evidence against him was of identification by a man, also criminally involved, who had been given immunity. No identification parade was held.
Held: It was clear from . .
Cited – Phipps v The Director of Public Prosecutions and Another PC 27-Jun-2012
phipps_dppPC2012
(Jamaica) The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He complained that he had been prejudiced because the jury were told that he had been produced from custody, and one of his witnesses was produced in court in chains, thus . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Commonwealth, Criminal Practice
Updated: 07 June 2022; Ref: scu.183087
