Category: Crime

Flint and Another, Regina v: CACD 6 Oct 2020

These two cases involved the possession of explosive substances for the suggested object of experimentation and self-education/curiosity – whether this court should grant their applications for exceptional leave to appeal out of time, bearing in mind the majority decision in Copeland.

Lord Justice Fulford
[2020] EWCA Crim 1266
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 13 January 2022; Ref: scu.654505

Suski, Regina v: CACD 22 Jan 2016

The appellant complained that his long standing domestic partner, with whom he had children, but whom he had not married, had been a co-accused on a conspiracy charge. He said that since the relationship was akin to marriage the prosecution

Mccombe LJ, Blake J
[2016] EWCA Crim 24, [2016] 4 WLR 48
Bailii
Criminal Law Act 1977 2(2), European Cinvention on Human Rights 8
England and Wales

Crime, Human Rights

Updated: 13 January 2022; Ref: scu.562010

Ekaireb, Regina v: CACD 16 Dec 2015

The defendant appealed his conviction for murder, suggesting that his lead counsel’s conduct was incompetent to a degree that rendered the conviction unsafe.
Held: Although there were possible serious criticisms of counsel, they were not such as to render the conviction unsafe.
The court concluded: ‘Finally, there is one feature of the conduct of this case which judges must ensure ceases immediately and not be repeated in any case. That conduct is making in an address to the jury personal criticism of opposing advocates in contradistinction to criticism of the prosecution case.
We were told that the practice of making personal criticism of prosecution advocates has become a feature of some addresses to the jury made by defence advocates. In this case the personal criticism of A and L by should not have been made in his addresses to the jury.
If any advocate has a criticism of the personal conduct of an opposing advocate that is a matter that should be raised before the judge who will deal with it then and there, though, in what we hope would be the rarest of circumstances, it could be referred to the professional disciplinary body.
The conduct of a trial before a jury requires proper and professional conduct by all advocates in speeches to the jury. As any personal criticism of the conduct of an opposing advocate is a matter for the judge, it can form no proper part of an address to a jury. The regrettable departure from proper standards of advocacy by making personal criticisms of advocates of an opposing party in an address to the jury must therefore cease. No court will tolerate its continuance.’

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, CJ
[2015] EWCA Crim 1936
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.561474

Boateng v R: CACD 16 Mar 2016

The defendants appealed against convictions for documentation offences after having pleaded guilty. They were said to have used the ID of a deceased Euroean resident to obtain entry. It was acknowledged by the prosecutor that the wrong subsection had been used to base the charge.
Held: The appeals succeeded in part. Some flaws were fundamental, others not. If it was clear that what was alleged against the defendant, was akin to a mere drafting or clerical error it should not invalidate the count. On the other hand for example one count alleged was not an offence at the time.

Sir Brian Leveson P QBD, Globe, Cheema-Grubb JJ
[2016] EWCA Crim 57, [2016] WLR(D) 145
Bailii, WLRD
Immigration Act 1971 24A(1)(a), Identity Cards Act 2006 25, Identity Documents Act 2010 4
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.561158

Wm Weir, Esq of Waygateshaw v Arthur Naismith, John Syme, Charles Hamilton, Wm Cullen, Jas Hamilton, William Allan, and Others: HL 3 Mar 1743

At a time of famine, when meal was scarce, a riot took place in the burgh of Hamilton, whereby the appellant’s granaries were broken into, and his meal carried off: Held the magistrates, William Cullen and Charles Hamilton, not liable to make good the damages, having not had any accession to, or connivance with, the rioters, but having done all in their power to prevent it: reversed in the House of Lords, and held them liable as having failed and neglected to perform their duty, and connived at the said riot. Also held William Allan and some others liable as having taken a part in the riot. Quoad ultra affirmed.

[1743] UKHL 6 – Paton – 678, (1743) 6 Paton 678
Bailii
Scotland

Local Government, Crime

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.556796

Invicta Plastics Limited v Clare: QBD 1976

Those advertising and selling devices which were designed to detect the presence of police radar speed devices commit the offence of incitement under section 1(1) of the 1949 Act which required a licence for the use of such apparatus.

[1976] RTR 251, [1976] Crim LR 131
Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 1(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Knightsbridge Crown Court ex parte Foot Admn 29-Jan-1998
A device which tested for police radar speed check did not intercept a message between persons and therefore was not unlawful. ‘a signal in this context is not a mere electronic impulse but is rather a sign or something of meaning to another person. . .
Cited – CBS Songs Ltd v Amstrad Consumer Electronics Plc HL 12-May-1988
The plaintiffs as representatives sought to restrain Amstrad selling equipment with two cassette decks without taking precautions which would reasonably ensure that their copyrights would not be infringed by its users.
Held: Amstrad could only . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Road Traffic, Crime

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.187450

Keating v Horwood: QBD 1926

A baker’s van was doing its rounds, delivering bread which had already been ordered but the van also contained bread which could be bought as required. The bread was underweight The Order prohibited the offering or exposing for sale of food misdescribed.
Held:
Lord Hewart CJ said: ‘The question is whether, on the facts, there were (i) an offering, and (ii) an exposure, for sale. In my opinion there were both.’
Shearman J said: ‘I am of the same opinion. I am quite clear that this bread was exposed for sale, but have had some doubt whether it could be said to have been offered for sale until a particular loaf was tendered to a particular customer.’

Lord Hewart CJ, J Avory, Shearman J
[1926] All ER Rep 88
Sale of Food Order 1921
England and Wales
Cited by:
Distinguished – Fisher v Bell QBD 10-Nov-1960
A shopkeeper displayed a flick-knife in his window for sale. A price was also displayed. He was charged with offering it for sale, an offence under the Act. The words ‘offer for sale’ were not defined in the Act, and therefore the magistrates . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.185107

Fisher v Bell: QBD 10 Nov 1960

A shopkeeper displayed a flick-knife in his window for sale. A price was also displayed. He was charged with offering it for sale, an offence under the Act. The words ‘offer for sale’ were not defined in the Act, and therefore the magistrates construed them as under the general law of contract, in which case the shopkeeper had merely issued an invitation to treat.
Held: The display of the knife in the window was indeed only an invitation to treat, and the knife had not been offered for sale. In the Keating and Wiles cases the Acts in question allowed a conviction where an item was exposed for sale. That did not apply here. The appeal was dismissed.
Lord Justice Parker said: ‘It is perfectly clear that according to the ordinary law of contract the display of an article with a price on it in a shop window is merely an invitation to treat. It is in no sense an offer for sale the acceptance of which constitutes a contract.’

Parker LJ CJ, Ashworth Elwes JJ
[1961] 1 QB 394
England and Wales
Citing:
Distinguished – Wiles v Maddison 1943
It was proved that the defendant had the intention to commit an offence. Viscount Caldecote CJ said ‘A person might, for instance, be convicted of making an offer of an article at too high a price by putting it in his shop window to be sold at an . .
Cited – Magor and St Mellons Rural District Council v Newport Corporaion HL 1951
The Court of Appeal had tried to fill in the gaps in a statute where parliament had intended an effect.
Held: Rights to compensation are well capable of falling within the definition of ‘property of a company’ in the relevant provisions of the . .
Distinguished – Keating v Horwood QBD 1926
A baker’s van was doing its rounds, delivering bread which had already been ordered but the van also contained bread which could be bought as required. The bread was underweight The Order prohibited the offering or exposing for sale of food . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Consumer, Contract

Leading Case

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.185104

Regina v Dudley and Stephens: QBD 9 Dec 1884

Three survivors of the yacht Mignonette were landed from a German sailing barge at Falmouth in September 1884. On the day they landed all three of them described the circumstances in which the fourth member of the crew, the ship’s boy had been killed and eaten on their twentieth day of survival on the open sea without water or food (apart from two tins of turnips). Two defendants agreed to, and did eat the cabin boy, the youngest and weakest of the party. The third boat member also ate, but had declined to be involved in the killing. After rescue the two who killed the cabin boy were accused of murder. The facts found, were referred to the Divisional Court for a special verdict.
Held: Lord Coleridge CJ said: ‘From these facts stated with the cold precision of a special verdict it appears sufficiently that the prisoners were subject to terrible temptation, to sufferings which might break down the bodily power of the strongest man, and try the conscience of the best . . But nevertheless this is clear, that the prisoners put to death a weak and unoffending boy upon the chance of preserving their own lives by feeding upon his flesh and blood after he was killed, and with the certainty of depriving him of any possible chance of survival. The verdict finds in terms that ‘if the men had not fed upon the body of the boy they would probably not have survived,’ and that ‘ the boy being in a much weaker condition was likely to have died before them . . Now, except for the purpose of testing how far the observation of a man’s life is in all cases and under all circumstances, an absolute, unqualified, and paramount duty, we exclude from our considerations all incidents of war. We are dealing with a case of a private homicide, not one imposed upon men in the service of their Sovereign and in the defence of their country. Now it is admitted that the deliberate killing of this unoffending and unresisting boy was clearly murder, unless the killing can be justified by some well recognised excuse admitted by the law. It is further admitted that there was in this case no such excuse, unless the killing was justified by what has been called ‘necessity.’ But the temptation to the act which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted. Though law and morality are not the same. and many things may be immoral which are not necessarily illegal, yet the absolute divorce of law from morality would be of fatal consequence; and such divorce would follow if the temptation to murder in this case were to be held by law an absolute defence of it. It is not so. To preserve one’s life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man’s duty not to live, but to die. The duty, in case of shipwreck, of a captain to his crew, of the crew to the passengers, of soldiers to women and children, as in the noble case of the Birkenhead; these duties impose on men the moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives for others, from which in no country, least of all, it is to be hoped, in England, will men shrink, as indeed they have not shrunk . . It would be a very easy and cheap display of common-place learning to quote from Greek and Latin authors . . passage after passage, in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics; it is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the Great Example whom we profess to follow. It is not needful to point out the awful danger of admitting the principle which has been contended for. Who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another’s life to save his own. In this case the weakest, the youngest, the most unresisting, was chosen. Was it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men? The answer must be ‘No . . . ‘ . . . It must not be supposed that in refusing to admit temptation to be an excuse for crime it is forgotten how terrible the temptation was; how awful the suffering; how hard in such trials to keep the judgment straight and the conduct pure. We are often compelled to set up standards we cannot reach ourselves, and to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy. But a man has no right to declare himself to have yielded to it, nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime. It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners’ act in this case was wilful murder, that the facts as stated in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide; and to say that in our unanimous opinion the prisoners are upon this special verdict guity of murder.’ and ‘if Lord Bacon meant to lay down the broad proposition that a man may save his life by killing, if necessary, an innocent and unoffending neighbour, it certainly is not law at the present day’ (The sentence of death was later commuted to six months imprisonment.)

Lord Coleridge CJ
(1884) 14 QBD 173, [1884] EWHC 2 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Rex v Oneby 1727
Where A and B have a sudden violent quarrel, and later, after tempers should have cooled, A kills B, that is murder. If A says he will revenge himself on B, or will have his blood, that is express malice. The fact of killing is prima facie murder. . .

Cited by:
Applied – Regina v Howe etc HL 19-Feb-1986
The defendants appealed against their convictions for murder, saying that their defences of duress had been wrongly disallowed.
Held: Duress is not a defence available on a charge of murder. When a defence of duress is raised, the test is . .
Cited – In Re A (Minors) (Conjoined Twins: Medical Treatment); aka In re A (Children) (Conjoined Twins: Surgical Separation) CA 22-Sep-2000
Twins were conjoined (Siamese). Medically, both could not survive, and one was dependent upon the vital organs of the other. Doctors applied for permission to separate the twins which would be followed by the inevitable death of one of them. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 12 January 2022; Ref: scu.185683

Foy, Regina v: CACD 27 Feb 2020

Availability of defence of diminished responsibility.
Held: On appeals against conviction, the appellate court will ordinarily also be very wary of fresh evidence in the form of what is sometimes called ‘expert shopping’.

Davis LJ, Spencer, Griffith JJ
[2020] EWCA Crim 270
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Leave – Foy v Regina CACD 5-Jul-2019
Renewed application to appeal from conviction for murder. Possible finding of diminished responsibility. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Wangige, Regina v CACD 14-Oct-2020
Second Prosecution on Same Facts was An Abuse
The defendant appealed his conviction of causing death by dangerous driving. He appealed from the refusal of the judge to give a stay the prosecution as an abuse He had been previously prosecuted for a lesser offence on the same facts.
Held: . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 January 2022; Ref: scu.648846

LG, Regina v: CACD 27 Mar 2018

Appeal from preliminary ruling refusing a stay of the prosecution as an abuse of process.
Held: A change of mind about the appropriate charging decision is not of itself a bar to a prosecution

[2018] EWCA Crim 736
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Wangige, Regina v CACD 14-Oct-2020
Second Prosecution on Same Facts was An Abuse
The defendant appealed his conviction of causing death by dangerous driving. He appealed from the refusal of the judge to give a stay the prosecution as an abuse He had been previously prosecuted for a lesser offence on the same facts.
Held: . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 January 2022; Ref: scu.634153

Foy v Regina: CACD 5 Jul 2019

Renewed application to appeal from conviction for murder. Possible finding of diminished responsibility.

Justice Julian Knowles
[2019] EWCA Crim 1156
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Leave – Foy, Regina v CACD 27-Feb-2020
Availability of defence of diminished responsibility.
Held: On appeals against conviction, the appellate court will ordinarily also be very wary of fresh evidence in the form of what is sometimes called ‘expert shopping’. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 January 2022; Ref: scu.639320

Marcantonio v Regina: CACD 24 Feb 2016

Judgment in two cases, an appeal against conviction (R v. Marcantonio) and an application for permission to appeal against conviction (R v. Chitolie), which have in common the submission that the appellant/applicant in each case was unfit to plead, within section 4, Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, at the time of his trial, and that this court should therefore quash his conviction and consider the exercise of its powers under section 6, Criminal Appeals Act 1968.

Lloyd Jones LJ, Edis J, Watt HHJ
[2016] EWCA Crim 14
Bailii
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 10 January 2022; Ref: scu.560239

Clarke, Regina v: HL 20 Jun 1985

The respondent was arrested by a police officer who mistakenly believed that he was in unlawful possession of a car. He was taken to a police station for questioning but after he had been cleared of that suspicion the police officer told the respondent that he had reason to suspect that he was unlawfully resident in the United Kingdom. The respondent falsely stated that he was born in the United Kingdom, that he was a British subject and that he possessed a British passport. The respondent was arrested as a suspected illegal entrant or resident and charged under s 26(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1971 with having made a false statement to ‘an immigration officer or other person lawfully acting in the execution of [the] Act’. The police officer claimed to be a ‘person lawfully acting in the execution of [the] Act’. The respondent was convicted by magistrates but the Crown Court quashed the conviction. An appeal by the Crown to the Divisional Court was dismissed and the Crown appealed to the House of Lords.
Held — On the true construction of s 26(1)(c) of the 1971 Act a person could only claim to be ‘acting in the execution of [the] Act’ if he was acting in the performance of a duty imposed by, or in the exercise of a power conferred by, that Act and an offence under s 26(1)(c) was committed only if the false statement was addressed to a person in the course of a specific procedure under the Act in which that person’s statutory function involved the obtaining or receipt of information relevant to the performance of that function. Since the police officer had not been acting in the execution of functions conferred on him by or under the 1971 Act when questioning the respondent even though he had reasonable cause to suspect that an offence under the Act had been committed, the officer had not been ‘lawfully acting in the execution of [the] Act’. It followed that the Crown’s appeal would be dismissed (

Scarman, Diplock, Bridge of Harwich, Brandon of Oakwood, Brightman LL
[1985] UKHL 14, [1985] Crim LR 666, [1985] 3 WLR 113, [1985] 1 AC 1037, 81 Cr App Rep 220, [1985] 2 All ER 777
Bailii
Immigration Act 1971 26(1)(c)
England and Wales

Crime, Immigration

Updated: 10 January 2022; Ref: scu.559760

Collins, Regina (on The Application of) v The Secretary of State for Justice: Admn 15 Jan 2016

The claimant had been injured by the householder as he burgled the premises. He now complained that the rules allowing an extended defence to such an assault infringed his human rights.
Held: Section 76(5A) of the 2008 Act does not extend the ambit in law of the second limb of self-defence but, properly construed, provides emphasis to the requirement to consider all the circumstances permitting a degree of force to be used on an intruder in householder cases which is reasonable in all the circumstances (whether that degree of force was disproportionate or less than disproportionate). In particular, it does not alter the test to permit, in all circumstances, the use of disproportionate force and, to that extent, the CPS reviewer adopted the wrong test when reconsidering the facts of this case. Neither does the provision offend Article 2 of the ECHR.

Sir Brian Leveson P QBD, Cranston J
[2016] EWHC 33 (Admin)
Bailii
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 76(5A), European Convention on Human Rights 2
England and Wales

Crime, Human Rights, Torts – Other

Updated: 09 January 2022; Ref: scu.558733

Hubert, Regina (on The Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Another: Admn 18 Dec 2015

The claimant sought judicial review of a decision of the DPP to intervene in and abandon her private prosecution of two doctors involved n what she said was a decision to carry out abortions which decsions were affected by the sex of the foetus. At the instigation of a newspapers, two women had attended clinics requesting terminations on grounds they said associated with the sex of the foetus. After considering the evidence the DPP had himself declined to prosecute.

Burnett LJ, Irwin J
[2015] EWHC 3733 (Admin)
Bailii
Offences Against the Person Act 1861 58, Abortion Act 1967 1, Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 6(2)
England and Wales
Cited by:
See Also – Hubert, Regina (on The Application of) v Manchester Crown Court and Another (2) Admn 18-Dec-2015
The claimant challenged orders consequential on the DPP’ decision to intervene to stop her intended private prosecution of two doctors . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Criminal Practice

Updated: 08 January 2022; Ref: scu.557371