The defendant appealed from convictions of wounding with intent, and murder. The issue was one of identification, and he criticised the absence of a full Turnbull direction.
Held: A Turnbull warning should warn the jury of the dangers inherent in identification evidence, the reason for the danger, and the fact that one or more honest witnesses may still be wrong. In this case, the prosecution suggested it was recognition rather than identification evidence, and a full warning was not required. The judge should nevertheless have given the direction. ‘Where issues of identification arise, which depend so often on an accumulation of detailed points, it is usually a desirable approach for the Judge, at some stage, to put before the jury a coherent list of the points for the defence. If the exercise is conducted solely on the basis that the individual points to be made will be dealt with in the course of recounting the evidence, it is perilously easy for individual points to be overlooked, or for an apparently ‘weighted’ approach to develop as between prosecution and defence.’ He had also been unclear as to the burden of proof on the alibi question. The appeal was allowed.
Judges:
Lord Justice Potter, Mr Justice Holland, And The Recorder Of Liverpool (His Honour Judge Clarke)
Citations:
[1997] EWCA Crim 3419
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Bentley CACD 1994
Referring to the summing up upon the identification issues: ‘There is no doubt that there were two matters missing from it. The first was that there was no warning as to the dangers of identification evidence and the reasons for those dangers . .
Cited – Regina v Pattinson and Exley CACD 1996
In giving a Turnbull direction, the court should ‘(a) Warn the jury of the special need for caution before convicting on that evidence.. (b) Instruct the jury as to the reason for such need. And (c) Refer the jury to the fact that a mistaken witness . .
Cited – Regina v Fergus CACD 29-Jun-1993
A judge should withdraw a case which was based on poor identification evidence, and the prosecution must be sure to disclose all identification evidence. ‘In a case dependent on visual identification, and particularly where that is the only . .
Cited – Regina v Lesley CACD 1996
Referring to the standard alibi direction, ‘As the prosecution has to prove his guilt so that you are sure of it, he does not have to prove he was elsewhere at the time. On the contrary, the prosecution must disprove the alibi.’ the court said that . .
Cited – Regina v Keene 1977
‘The jury must be told that they can rely on a false alibi as supporting an identification only if they are satisfied that the sole reason for the fabrication was to deceive them on the issue of identification.’ . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Evidence, Crime
Updated: 11 October 2022; Ref: scu.152874