The defendant appealed against his conviction for sexual and common assault. He objected as to the use of bad character evidence, and the rejection of his no case to answer submission. The evidence was primarily by identification where the descriptions were inconsistent and there had been delay.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The judge had failed, as required, properly to rehearse the weaknesses in the identification evidence: ‘There were a considerable number of points to be emphasised as regards the potential unreliability of this identification evidence, as rehearsed above, and given it was the sole evidence that incriminated the appellant it was critical that the judge directed the jury as to the main matters on which they needed to focus in this context. Even allowing for the fact that this had been a short trial, on the particular facts of this case the failure by the judge to identity the specific weaknesses in the identification evidence at any stage constituted a significant defect in the summing up such as to render the verdicts unsafe.’
Fulford LJ, Holroyde J, Lakin HHJ
[2014] EWCA Crim 420
Bailii
England and Wales
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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.522454