The court was asked whether, after the appellant had been tried and convicted at the Crown Court in Coventry on 26 November 2008 of offences of sexual assault on a child under 13, the court should admit under s.23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 fresh evidence that he was unfit to plead at the trial. The issue involved consideration of whether the appellant’s accepted low IQ and hearing disability amounted to unfitness to plead within the Pritchard criteria.
Held: Referring to the jury directions in John M, the court said they were: ‘careful directions . . elucidating the test in a case where the issue was determined by the jury’.
Judges:
homas LJ, MacDuff, Macur DBE JJ
Citations:
[2011] EWCA Crim 443, [2011] 2 Cr App Rep 6
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Orr, Regina v CACD 7-Jul-2016
The court considered whether the trial court had correctly identified the test for fitness to plead.
Held: The appeal was allowed: ‘Once the issue of fitness to plead has been raised it must be determined. In this case, the judge explicitly . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 06 September 2022; Ref: scu.432781