Category: Crime

L and Others v The Children’s Commissioner for England and Another: CACD 21 Jun 2013

Even where it has been clearly established that a defendant had been trafficked that should not provide him with immunity from prosecution for a criminal offence. Lord Judge CJ explained that: ‘it has not, however, and could not have been argued that if and when victims of trafficking participate or become involved in criminal activities, a trafficked individual should be given some kind of immunity from prosecution, just because he or she was or has been trafficked, nor for that reason alone, that a substantive defence to a criminal charge is available to a victim of trafficking’.

Lord Judge CJ
[2013] EWCA Crim 991, [2014] 1 All ER 113, [2013] 2 Cr App R 23, [2014] Crim LR 150, [2013] WLR(D) 249
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Okedare, Regina v CACD 27-Feb-2014
The court heard applications for leave to appeal on behalf of applicants who had either absconded or disappeared.
Held: The court considered whether the lawyers filing the appeals had authority, whether express or implied. ‘we are satisfied . .
Cited – Hounga v Allen and Another SC 30-Jul-2014
The appellant, of Nigerian origin had been brought here at the age of 14 with false identity papers, and was put to work caring for the respondent’s children. In 2008 she was dismissed and ejected from the house. She brought proceedings alleging . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.511036

O’Neill v Her Majesty’s Advocate No 2: SC 13 Jun 2013

The appellants had been convicted of murder, it being said that they had disposed of her body at sea. They now said that the delay between being first questioned and being charged infringed their rights to a trial within a reasonable time, and questioned whether they had has an impartial judge, he having also conducted a separate trial of them on different matters after which he had described them as ‘evil, determined, manipulative and predatory paedophiles of the worst sort’.
Held: The appeals failed, and the cases were remitted to the High Court of Justice. Article 6(3)(c) focussed on matters when the suspect is first interrogated: to wait until there was sufficient evidence to charge before the suspect has the right of access to a lawyer could seriously prejudice his right to a fair trial. This contrasted with the reasonable time guarantee of article 6(1): it relates to the running of time, not on what is needed to preserve the right to a fair trial. A person should not remain too long in uncertainty. Time runs from the date which the suspect’s position is substantially affected by the official notification.
In this case the initial question did not amount to the first charge as required.
As to the allegation of bias, only if the judge expressed outspoken opinions about the appellants’ character which were entirely gratuitous, and only if the occasion for making them was plainly outside the scope of the proper performance of his duties, would a fair minded and informed observer doubt the judge’s ability to perform those duties with an objective judicial mind.

Lord Hope, Deputy President, Lord Kerr, Lord Wilson, Lord Hughes, Lord Toulson
[2013] UKSC 36, [2013] 2 Cr App R 34, [2013] HRLR 25, [2013] 1 WLR 1992, 2013 SCL 678, 2013 SLT 888, 2013 GWD 21-410, [2013] WLR(D) 231, 2013 SCCR 401, UKSC 2012/0149
Bailii, WLRD, Bailii Summary, SC Summary, SC
European Convention on Human Rights 6(1) 6(3)(c), Scotland Act 1998 Sch 6, Scotland Act 2012
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Lauchlan and Another v HM Advocate HCJ 5-Jun-2009
The appellants were charged with murder. They appealed against an extension of time given to allow the prosecution to proceed.
Held: The appeal failed. . .
See Also – HM Advocate v Lauchlan and Another SCS 17-Jul-2009
Decision as to preliminary issues raised. . .
See Also – HM Advocate v Lauchlan and Another HCJ 14-Jan-2010
. .
See Also – HM Advocate v Lauchlan and Another HCJ 2-Jul-2010
. .
Cited – Ambrose v Harris, Procurator Fiscal, Oban, etc SC 6-Oct-2011
(Scotland) The appellant had variously been convicted in reliance on evidence gathered at different stages before arrest, but in each case without being informed of any right to see a solicitor. The court was asked, as a devolution issue, at what . .
See Also – Lauchlan and Another v Her Majesty’s Advocate HCJ 8-Feb-2012
. .
See Also – Lauchlan and Another v HM Advocate HCJ 19-Apr-2012
. .
See Also – O’Neill v The United Kingdom ECHR 13-Nov-2012
. .
Cited – Deweer v Belgium ECHR 27-Feb-1980
The applicant, a Belgian butcher, paid a fine by way of settlement in the face of an order for the closure of his shop until judgment was given in an intended criminal prosecution or until such fine was paid.
Held: Since the payment was made . .
Cited – Eckle v Germany ECHR 15-Jul-1982
Two fraud prosecutions against the claimants had lasted for 15 and 20 years respectively.
Held: Article 6.1 applies to all stages of criminal proceedings, including sentencing and any appeal. The ‘reasonable time’ in criminal matters, . .
Cited – Darmalingum v The State PC 10-Jul-2000
(Mauritius) The constitutional right of a defendant to have his case tried within a reasonable time applied not just to the initial trial but also to any appeal arising from that trial. Where there had been inordinate and inexcusable delay between . .
Cited – Dyer v Watson and Burrows PC 29-Jan-2002
Parties challenged the compliance of proceedings with the convention where there had been considerable delay.
Held: The reasonable detention provision (article 5(3)) and the reasonable time requirement (article 6(1)) conferred free-standing . .
Cited – Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 2001) HL 11-Dec-2003
The house was asked whether it might be correct to stay criminal proceedings as an abuse where for delay. The defendants were prisoners in a prison riot in 1998. The case only came on for trial in 2001, when they submitted that the delay was an . .
Cited – Salduz v Turkey ECHR 27-Nov-2008
(Grand Chamber) The applicant had been taken into custody before he was interrogated during his detention by police officers of the anti-terrorism branch of the Izmir Security Directorate.
Held: There had been a violation of art 6(3)(c) of the . .
Cited – Zaichenko v Russia ECHR 18-Feb-2010
(First Section) The claimant complaned that he had not been allowed access to a lawyer when being questioned by police when he was not under arrest. He had been stopped driving home from work and his car inspected by the police after reports of . .
Cited – Cadder v Her Majesty’s Advocate SC 26-Oct-2010
Statement without lawyer access was inadmissible
The accused complained that he had been convicted for assault and breach of the peace on the basis of a statement made by him during an interview with the police where, under the 1995 Act, he had been denied access to a lawyer.
Held: The . .
Cited – Ambrose v Harris, Procurator Fiscal, Oban, etc SC 6-Oct-2011
(Scotland) The appellant had variously been convicted in reliance on evidence gathered at different stages before arrest, but in each case without being informed of any right to see a solicitor. The court was asked, as a devolution issue, at what . .
Cited – Leggate v HM Advocate 1988
The judge has a wide discretion to refuse any application by the advocate depute to cross-examine the appellant on his previous convictions. . .
Cited – Porter and Weeks v Magill HL 13-Dec-2001
Councillors Liable for Unlawful Purposes Use
The defendant local councillors were accused of having sold rather than let council houses in order to encourage an electorate which would be more likely to be supportive of their political party. They had been advised that the policy would be . .
Cited – Lawal v Northern Spirit Limited HL 19-Jun-2003
Counsel appearing at the tribunal had previously sat as a judge with a tribunal member. The opposing party asserted bias in the tribunal.
Held: The test in Gough should be restated in part so that the court must first ascertain all the . .
Cited – Salduz v Turkey ECHR 26-Apr-2007
The applicant complained that he had been arrested and detained by anti-terrorist police. At his trial evidence of his statement was challenged on the basis that it had been extracted from him under duress and that he had not had access to a lawyer. . .
Cited – Regina v Abdroikof, Regina v Green; Regina v Williamson HL 17-Oct-2007
The House was asked whether a jury in criminal trials containing variously a Crown Prosecution Service solicitor, or a police officer would have the appearance of bias. In Abdroikof, the presence of the police officer on the jury was discovered only . .
Cited – Helow v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Another HL 22-Oct-2008
The appellant, a Palestinian, challenged the involvement of Lady Cosgrove as a judge in her case, saying that Lady Cosgrove’s involvement as a jew in pro-Jewish lobby organisations meant that there was an appearance of bias. The applicant had sought . .
Cited – Yankov And Manchev v Bulgaria ECHR 22-Oct-2009
. .
Cited – Simeon Szypusz v The United Kingdom ECHR 21-Sep-2010
The applicant, relied on Article 6-1 of the Convention, to allege that he had not had a fair trial as there were insufficient guarantees to exclude legitimate doubt regarding the independence and impartiality of the tribunal which tried him on . .
Cited – President of the Republic of South Africa v South African Rugby Football Union 4-Jun-1999
Constitutional Court of South Africa – The court considered an allegation of bias in the judge, it being said that they should have recused themselves: ‘The question is whether a reasonable, objective and informed person would on the correct facts . .
Cited – Locabail (UK) Ltd, Regina v Bayfield Properties Ltd CA 17-Nov-1999
Adverse Comments by Judge Need not be Show of Bias
In five cases, leave to appeal was sought on the basis that a party had been refused disqualification of judges on grounds of bias. The court considered the circumstances under which a fear of bias in a court may prove to be well founded: ‘The mere . .
Cited – JSC BTA Bank v Ablyazov (Recusal) CA 28-Nov-2012
The question was whether a judge had been right not to recuse himself as the nominated judge of trial, in circumstances where he had had to hear, prior to trial, an application to commit one of the parties for contempt of court and had found a . .

Cited by:
Cited – Kapri v The Lord Advocate (Representing The Government of The Republic of Albania) SC 10-Jul-2013
The Court was asked whether it would be compatible with the appellant’s Convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998 for the appellant, who is an Albanian national, to be extradited to Albania. On 7 April 2001, while he was in . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Scotland, Crime, Human Rights

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.510829

Beatty v Gillbanks: QBD 13 Jun 1882

The appellants assembled with others for a lawful purpose, and with no intention of carrying it out unlawfully, but with the knowledge that their assembly would be opposed, and with good reason to suppose that a breach of the peace would be committed by those who opposed it.
Held: Persons who are lawfully and peaceably assembled could not be convicted of the offence that they did ‘unlawfully and tumultuously assemble with divers other persons . . to the disturbance of the public peace, and against the peace of our sovereign Lady the Queen.’ They did nothing unlawful and the evidence showed that the disturbances were caused by other people antagonistic to the appellants. ‘What has happened here is that an unlawful organisation has assumed to itself the right to prevent the appellants and others from lawfully assembling together, and the finding of the justices amounts to this, that a man may be convicted for doing a lawful act if he knows that his doing it may cause another to do an unlawful act.’ Per contra the Court said ‘If this disturbance of the peace was the natural consequence of acts of the appellants they would be liable, and the justices would have been right in binding them over.’

[1882] 9 QBD 308, [1882] UKLawRpKQB 104, (1881-1882) 9 QBD 308, (1882) 15 Cox CC 138
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Chief Constable of Sussex, ex Parte International Trader’s Ferry Limited HL 2-Apr-1998
Chief Constable has a Wide Discretion on Resources
Protesters sought to prevent the appellant’s lawful trade exporting live animals. The police provided assistance, but then restricted it, pleading lack of resources. The appellants complained that this infringed their freedom of exports under . .
Cited – Hubbard v Pitt CA 1976
Protesters handed out leaflets and carried posters outside the plaintiff’s estate agency. He claimed in trespass over the public footpath outside his premises. The defendants appealed the grant of an interlocutory injunction to prevent their . .
Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the application of ) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire HL 13-Dec-2006
The claimants had been in coaches being driven to take part in a demonstration at an air base. The defendant police officers stopped the coaches en route, and, without allowing any number of the claimants to get off, returned the coaches to London. . .
Cited – Austin and Another v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis CA 15-Oct-2007
The claimants appealed dismissal of their claims for false imprisonment and unlawful detention by the respondent in his policing of a demonstration. They had been held within a police cordon in the streets for several hours to prevent the spread of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Constitutional

Leading Case

Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.192009

Baker v Crown Prosecution Service: Admn 27 Jan 2009

Complaint was made as to the entry by police officers into premises seeking a knife.
Held: May LJ said: ‘The expression ‘saving life or limb’ is a colourful, slightly outmoded expression. It is here used in close proximity with the expression ‘preventing serious damage to property’. That predicates a degree of apprehended serious bodily injury. Without implicitly limiting or excluding the possible types of serious bodily injury, apprehended knife injuries and gunshot injuries will obviously normally be capable of coming within the subsection.’

Silber J, May LJ
[2009] EWHC 299 (Admin), [2009] 173 JP 215
Bailii
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 17(1)(e)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Syed v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 13-Jan-2010
The defendant appealed by case stated against his conviction for assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty. Three officers responded to a report of a disturbance and entered his house despite his struggle. The officers purported to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Police

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.374370

Higgs v Regina: CACD 24 Jun 2008

The defendant appealed against his conviction under the section. He ran a business fitting modifying chips to games consoles allowing them to play non-certificated games CDs.
Held: The appeal was allowed. It was not suggested that the use of a modified console to play a game on an infringing CD was itself an infringement of copyright (though it might have been). The case had been put that by supplying the modifications, the defendant had been encouraging copyright infringement and thereby infringing it. The travaux preparatoires were not an exact match and could not be relied on. The conviction was quashed, but a question certified for the House of Lords.
Jacob LJ said: ‘Is it enough if the technological measure is a discouragement or general commercial hindrance to copyright infringement or must it be a measure which physically prevents it? To our minds the position is clear — it is the latter. Neither the Directive nor the Act would have been drafted in the way that they are if such a general form of hindrance was enough.’

Jacob LJ
[2008] EWCA Crim 1324, [2009] 1 WLR 73, [2008] FSR 34
Bailii
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 296ZB
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Spelling Goldberg v BPC Publishing 1981
Taking a copy of even a single frame of a cinematograph film is probably an infringement of copyright. . .
Applied – Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment and Others 6-Oct-2005
(High Court of Australia) The court was asked whether modchips used to free games consoles were a ‘technological protection measure’ designed to circumvent were a device etc. ‘designed . . to prevent or inhibit’ infringement. The court rejected the . .
Cited – Effort Shipping Company Ltd v Linden Management Sa and others (The Glannis Nk) HL 22-Jan-1998
A ship’s cargo can be held to be dangerous, and the shipper liable for anything which was more than an obvious physical danger. Such wider danger includes beetle infestation of a crop cargo. Lord Steyn said:’I would be quite prepared, in an . .
Cited – Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited, Sony Computer Entertainment UK Limited v Ball, and others ChD 19-Jul-2004
The claimant sought summary judgment in a claim that the defendant had manufactured computer chips which would be used with their playstation computer games consoles to avoid their copy protection systems.
Held: The fact that the chips only . .
Cited – Commissioners of Customs and Excise v Century Life Plc CA 19-Dec-2000
The Directive required member states to exempt from VAT, services involving the provision of insurance, and for intermediaries. Following the Regulator’s involvement, the principal company had to arrange for the checking of existing policies, and . .

Cited by:
Cited – Gilham v Regina CACD 9-Nov-2009
The defendant appealed against his conviction under the 1988 Act as amended. He had sold ‘modchips’ which were used to circumvent copyright protection measures in games consoles.
Held: The appeal failed. The prosecution had remedied the defect . .
Cited – Nintendo Company Ltd and Another v Playables Ltd and Another ChD 28-Jul-2010
The claimant said that the defendant was marketing an anti-copyright protection device, and now sought summary judgment.
Held: A partial settlement having been reached, the court should be particularly careful with an unopposed application. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Intellectual Property

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.270324

R, Regina v: CACD 16 Jan 2008

Appeal from termination ruling – offence alleged against the respondent of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence – whether the mere request by the respondent to someone to look for a young girl of 12 or 13 with whom he could indulge in sexual activity amounts to an offence under section 14
Held: ‘the section introduces an offence which amounted to something more than and wider than a criminal attempt under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981. Were it not so, there would be no purpose in introducing an offence under section 14. In relation to offences under sections 9 to 13 the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 would have served that purpose.’ and ‘ the defendant need do no more than ask. If that request had been accepted the full offence was committed. ‘

Moses LJ
[2008] EWCA Crim 619, [2009] 1 WLR 713, [2008] 2 Cr App Rep 38,
Cite as: [2009] 1 WLR 713, [2008] EWCA Crim 619, [2008] 2 Cr App R 38, [2008] 2 Cr App Rep 38, [2009] WLR 713,
Bailii
Criminal Justice Act 2003 58(7), Sexual Offences Act 2003 14
England and Wales

Crime

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.270451

Challen v Challen and Another: ChD 27 May 2020

Forfeiture rule disapplied after spousal abuse

The claimant sought the disapplication of the forfeiture rule. She had been convicted of the manslaughter of her seriously abusive husband. The court considered whether a conviction for murder set aside and replaced with one of manslaughter was a conviction under the 1982 Act, and that the three month strict time limit ran accordingly.
Held: The claim succeeded, and the forfeiture rule disapplied: ‘In my judgment, the word ‘conviction’ in section 2(3) of the 1982 Act does not refer to the occasion of the plea of guilty to manslaughter, but to the occasion (if they are at the same time) when the plea is accepted and the defendant is sentenced.’ and ‘ it is only at the point of sentence and not, if this is earlier, when the court accepts the plea, that there is a ‘conviction’ within section 2(3) of the 1982 Act, such that the three-month time limit begins to run.’
‘These facts are extraordinary, tragic, and, one would hope, rare. They lasted 40 years and involved the combination of a submissive personality on whom coercive control worked, a man prepared to use that coercive control, a lack of friends or other sources of assistance, an enormous dependency upon him by the claimant, and significant psychiatric illness. The deceased undoubtedly contributed significantly to the circumstances in which he died. I do not say that because coercive control is now a criminal offence, but simply because I consider that, without his appalling behaviour over so many years, the claimant would not have killed him. ‘

HHJ Paul Matthews
[2020] EWHC 1330 (Ch), [2020] WLR(D) 356
Bailii, WLRD
Forfeiture Act 1982
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Cleaver v Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association CA 1892
The deceased’s executors objected to his widow maintaining action on a trust created by an insurance policy in her favour under the Act. She had been convicted of his murder. The executors’ case was that ‘it is against public policy to allow a . .
Cited – In the Estate of Cunigunda Crippen deceased 1911
Dr Crippen notoriously survived his wife. Between the date of his conviction for her murder and the carrying out of the death sentence passed on him, Dr Crippen made a will naming Ethel Le Neve as the sole executrix and universal beneficiary. Ethel . .
Cited – In Re Estate of Hall CA 1914
The rule of forfeiture applied as much to manslaughter as to murder. . .
Cited – Dunbar (As Administrator of Tony Dunbar Deceased) v Plant CA 23-Jul-1997
The couple had decided on a suicide pact. They made repeated attempts, resulting in his death. Property had been held in joint names. The deceased’s father asked the court to apply the 1982 Act to disentitle Miss Plant.
Held: The appeal was . .
Cited – Gray v Barr ChD 1970
The defendant had used a shotgun to threaten a man and the gun had accidentally gone off and killed him. The issue was whether the defendant could recover in respect of his liability under a policy of insurance. .
Held: The rule of public . .
Cited – Gray v Barr CA 1971
A husband had accidentally shot and killed his wife’s lover after threatening him with a shotgun.
Held: The court confirmed the decision at first instance. He was not liable to be indemnified by his insurers for the losses claimed against him . .
Cited – Re H (Deceased) 1990
The Plaintiff had stabbed his wife to death while acting under a delusion induced by a reaction to a drug that he had been prescribed.
Held: Public policy did not require in every case of the manslaughter of a spouse that the forfeiture rule . .
Cited – Regina v Cole CCA 1965
Six men robbed the bank manager and his assistant of monies in a safe in the vault of the bank premises. Two days later the appellant paid part of the proceeds of the robbery into two banks, located nearby to the vicinity of the robbery. Wax seals . .
Cited – S v Recorder of Manchester and Others HL 1971
S, a 16 year old boy pleaded guilty to attempted rape before a juvenile court. The magistrates adjourned the case for inquiry reports. On the adjourned hearing, his legal representative referred to evidence of the boy’s mental condition, and asked . .
Cited – Land v Land; In re Land, deceased ChD 13-Jul-2006
The claimant had cared for his elderly mother who ‘shunned any type of ‘officialdom’ including doctors and home helps.’ However, the claimant so neglected her that she suffered severe bed sores which had become infected in consequence of her lying . .
Cited – D v L and Others ChD 16-Apr-2003
The claimant had been found guilty of the manslaughter by diminished responsibility of the deceased. He now sought disapplication of the 1982 Act.
Held: The application failed: ‘The reforms introduced by the Homicide Act 1957 were designed to . .
Cited – Chadwick v Collinson and Others ChD 24-Sep-2014
The deceased and the claimant lived together for about 10 years in an apparently stable and loving relationship. They had a son together. They also co-owned a house (by way of joint tenancy) in which they lived. In April 2013 the claimant was . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Wills and Probate, Crime, Criminal Practice

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.650955

Logdon v Director of Public Prosecutions: QBD 1976

Fear caused with fake gun remains assault

The defendant pointed an imitation gun at a woman. He acted in jest, but she was frightened until he told her that it wasn’t real.
Held: The assault was committed. The victim had been put in fear of immediate and unlawful violence.
An assault can be committed by a person purporting to require positive or negative compliance with a condition on pain of an assault. The expected blow following immediately upon the threat to inflict it, may be an assault where D never intends to carry out the threat,

[1976] Crim LR 121
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.539760

Steel v Houghton Et Uxor: HL 1788

No Common Law Right to Glean

No person has, at common law, a right to glean in the harvest field. Neither have the poor of a parish legally settled (as such) any such right.
Lord Loughborough said that the relief of the poor is not a legal obligation, but a religious duty.

Lord Loughborough
[1788] EngR 37, (1788) 1 H Bl 51, (1788) 126 ER 32 (B)
Commonlii
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 12 November 2021; Ref: scu.368337

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 whether the threat was so serious as would cause a reasonable man in the same situation to behave in the same way.
Lord MacKay of Clashfern said: ‘It seems to me plain that the reason that it was for so long stated by writers of authority that the defence of duress was not available in a charge of murder was because of the supreme importance that the law afforded to the protection of human life and that it seemed repugnant that the law should recognise in any individual in any circumstances, however extreme, the right to choose that one innocent person should be killed rather than another. In my opinion, that is the question which we still must face. Is it right that the law should confer this right in any circumstances, however extreme?’
Lord Hailsham said: ‘This brings me back to the question of principle. I begin by affirming that, while there can never be a direct correspondence between law and morality, an attempt to divorce the two entirely is and has always proved to be, doomed to failure, and in the present case, the overriding objects of the criminal law must be to protect innocent lives and to set a standard of conduct which ordinary men and women are expected to observe if they are to avoid criminal responsibility . . Other considerations necessarily arise where the choice is between the threat of death or a fortiori of serious injury and deliberately taking an innocent life. In such a case a reasonable man might reflect that one innocent human life is at least as valuable as his own or that of his loved one. In such a case a man cannot claim he is choosing the lesser of two evils. Instead he is embracing the cognate but morally disreputable principle that the end justifies the means . . It may well be thought that the loss of a clear right to a defence justifying or excusing the deliberate taking of an innocent life in order to emphasise to all the sanctity of a human life is not an excessive price to pay in the light of these mechanisms’.
He continued: ‘There is of course an obvious distinction between duress and necessity as potential defences: duress arises from the wrongful threats or violence of another human being and necessity arises from any other objective dangers threatening the accused. This, however, is a distinction without a relevant difference, since on this view of duress it is only that species of the genus of necessity which is caused by wrongful threats. I cannot see that there is any way in which a person of ordinary fortitude can be excused from the one type of pressure on his will rather than the other.’

Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone LC, Lord MacKay of Clashfern
[1987] AC 417, [1987] 2 WLR 568, [1986] UKHL 4, (1987) 85 Cr App R 32
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Regina v Graham (Paul) CACD 18-Dec-1981
The defence of duress requires establishment of a reasonable belief. In judging the accused’s response the test is: ‘have the prosecution made the jury sure that a sober person of reasonable firmness, sharing the characteristics of the defendant, . .
Applied – Regina v Dudley and Stephens QBD 9-Dec-1884
dudley_stephens1884
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 . .
Overruled – Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland v Lynch HL 1975
The House considered the availability of duress as a defence on a charge of aiding and abetting murder. Referring to the basic elements of criminal liability, mens rea and actus reus: ‘Both terms have, however, justified themselves by their . .
Applied – Abbott v The Queen PC 20-Jul-1976
The appellant was charged as a principal in the first degree, and the issue was whether the defence of duress was available. The Board considered the availability of duress as a defence to a criminal charge.
Held: The defence was not open to . .
Cited – Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent) HL 1966
The House gave guidance how it would treat an invitation to depart from a previous decision of the House. Such a course was possible, but the direction was not an ‘open sesame’ for a differently constituted committee to prefer their views to those . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Safi (Ali Ahmed); Regina v Ghayur; Regina v Shah; Regina v Showaib; Regina v Mohammidy; Regina v Shohab; Regina v Ahmadi; Regina v Safi (Mahammad Nasir); Regina v Kazin CACD 6-Jun-2003
The defendants appealed convictions after rejection of their defence of duress. They had hijacked an aeroplane in Afghanistan, and surrendered eventually at Stansted. They said they were acting under duress, believing they had no other way of . .
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
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 . .
Applied – Regina v Gotts HL 3-Jun-1992
The defendant had been convicted of attempted murder, and appealed the rejection of his defence of duress.
Held: The defence of duress is not available to an accused facing a charge of attempted murder as a matter of policy, since it would not . .
Cited – Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing Association Ltd HL 28-Oct-1999
Same Sex Paartner to Inherit as Family Member
The claimant had lived with the original tenant in a stable and long standing homosexual relationship at the deceased’s flat. After the tenant’s death he sought a statutory tenancy as a spouse of the deceased. The Act had been extended to include as . .
Cited – Hasan, Regina v HL 17-Mar-2005
The House was asked two questions: the meaning of ‘confession’ for the purposes of section 76(1) of the 1984 Act, and as to the defence of duress. The defendant had been involved in burglary, being told his family would be harmed if he refused. The . .
Cited – Quayle and others v Regina, Attorney General’s Reference (No. 2 of 2004) CACD 27-May-2005
Each defendant appealed against convictions associated variously with the cultivation or possession of cannabis resin. They sought to plead medical necessity. There had been medical recommendations to move cannabis to the list of drugs which might . .
Cited – Reyes v The Queen PC 11-Mar-2002
(Belize) The Criminal Code of Belize provided that any murder by shooting was to be treated as Class A Murder, and be subject to the mandatory death penalty. The applicant having been convicted, appealed saying this was inhuman or degrading . .
Mentioned – Austin v Mayor and Burgesses of The London Borough of Southwark SC 23-Jun-2010
The appellant’s brother had been the secure tenant of the respondent Council which had in 1987 obtained an order for possession for rent arrears suspended on condition. The condition had not been complied with, but the brother had continued to live . .
Cited – Nicklinson v Ministry of Justice and Others QBD 12-Mar-2012
The claimant suffered locked-in syndrome and sought relief in a form which would allow others to assist him in committing suicide. The court considered whether the case should be allowed to proceed rather than to be struck out as hopeless.
Cited – Regina v Conway CACD 28-Jul-1988
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving. He said the offence was committed out of necessity, since his passenger’s life was under threat.
Held: Necessity can only be a defence to a charge of reckless driving where . .
Cited – Nicklinson and Another, Regina (on The Application of) SC 25-Jun-2014
Criminality of Assisting Suicide not Infringing
The court was asked: ‘whether the present state of the law of England and Wales relating to assisting suicide infringes the European Convention on Human Rights, and whether the code published by the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.186845

Regina v Uxbridge Magistrates and Another ex parte Adimi; R v CPS ex parte Sorani; R v SSHD and Another ex parte Kaziu: Admn 29 Jul 1999

The three asylum seeker appellants arrived in the United Kingdom at different times in possession of false passports. They were prosecuted for possession or use of false documents contrary to section 5, and for obtaining air services by deception under the Criminal Attempts Act. At the time, their applications to be accorded refugee status had yet to be determined by the Home Secretary. They challenged the decisions to prosecute.
Held: The provision in the Convention which protected an asylum seeker from criminal prosecution for unlawful entry into a country in order to apply for asylum, protected such applicants also from prosecution for the use of false papers produced in order to achieve such an entry. Such proceedings should await at least determination of the application for asylum.
Simon Brown LJ said: ‘What, then, was the broad purpose sought to be achieved by Article 31? Self-evidently it was to provide immunity for genuine refugees whose quest for asylum reasonably involved them in breaching the law. In the course of argument Newman J suggested the following formulation: where the illegal entry or use of false documents or delay can be attributed to a bona fide desire to seek asylum whether here or elsewhere, that conduct should be covered by Article 31. That seems to me helpful.
That Article 31 extends not merely to those ultimately accorded refugee status but also to those claiming asylum in good faith (presumptive refugees) is not in doubt. Nor is it disputed that article 31’s protection can apply equally to those using false documents as to those (characteristically the refugees of earlier times) who enter a country clandestinely.’

Simon Brown LJ, Newman J
Times 12-Aug-1999, [1999] EWHC Admin 765, [2001] QB 667, [2000] 3 WLR 434, [1999] Imm AR 560, [1999] 4 All ER 520
Bailii
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (1951) (Cmd 917), Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 5, Criminal Attempts Act 1981 1(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Rex v Rudd 1775
Mrs Rudd applied for a writ of habeas corpus, having already given evidence as an accomplice and being ready to give further evidence to assist in convicting her partners in crime.
Held: Where a co-accused gave evidence for the crown and . .
Cited – Regina v Boyes 27-May-1861
A defendant seeking to avoid answering questions so as not to incriminate himself is to be given some understanding and latitude in respecting his own interpretation. The beneficiary of a pardon could be called upon to incriminate himself because he . .
Cited – Lennox Phillip and Others v Director of Public Prosecutions of Trinidad and Tobago and Another; Same vCommissioners of Prisons PC 19-Feb-1992
(Trinidad and Tobago) There had been an insurrection, and many people were taken prisoner by the insurrectionists. To secure their release, the President issued an amnesty to all the insurgents, including the applicant. After surrendering, the . .

Cited by:
Cited – European Roma Rights Centre and others v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and Another CA 20-May-2003
A scheme had been introduced to arrange pre-entry clearance for visitors to the United Kingdom by posting of immigration officers in the Czech Republic. The claimants argued that the system was discriminatory, because Roma visitors were now . .
Cited – Regina (on the Application of Gjovalin Pepushi) v Crown Prosecution Service Admn 11-May-2004
The claimant was stopped when boarding a flight to Canada, having previously stopped in France and Italy. He bore a false Swedish passport, and intended to claim asylum in Canada. He now claimed the benefit of the article 31 (per Adimi), to defend a . .
Cited – Regina v Fraydon Navabi; Senait Tekie Embaye CACD 11-Nov-2005
The defendants had been convicted of not having an immigration document when presenting themselves for interview. They had handed their passports to the ‘agents’ who had assisted their entry.
Held: The jury should have been directed as to the . .
Cited – Regina v Makuwa CACD 23-Feb-2006
The defendant appealed her conviction for using a false instrument (a passport) intending someone else to accept it as genuine.
Held: Once she had brought forward sufficient evidence to support a claim to asylum status, it was then for the . .
Cited – Kola and Another v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 28-Nov-2007
The claimant said that the 1987 Regulations were invalid, in making invalid any claim for benefits by an asylum seeker who had not made his application exactly upon entry to the UK.
Held: The appeals were allowed. Section 11 of the 1971 Act is . .
Cited – Regina v Fregenet Asfaw HL 21-May-2008
The House considered the point of law: ‘If a defendant is charged with an offence not specified in section 31(3) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, to what extent is he entitled to rely on the protections afforded by article 31 of the 1951 . .
Cited – LM and Others v Regina; Regina v M(L), B(M) and G(D) CACD 21-Oct-2010
Each defendant appealed saying that being themselves the victims of people trafficking, the prosecutions had failed to take into account its obligations under the Convention.
Held: Prosecutors had ‘a three-stage exercise of judgment. The first . .
Cited – Al-Sirri v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 21-Nov-2012
The appellants had been refused refugee status on the ground that they were suspected of having been guilty of terrorist acts. They said that the definition of terrorism applied within the UK was wider than that in the Convention which contained the . .
Cited – Regina v Mohamed CACD 19-Oct-2010
The court considered the defence available to a refugee under the 1999 Act when charged with the offence of having in his possession or under his control an identity document that either to his knowledge or belief is false, or to his knowledge or . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Human Rights, Immigration, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.140029

Rex v Curley: CCA 1909

Manslaughter despite no direct assault

Where the proximate cause of an act leading to a death is terror caused by another, that person may be guilty of manslaughter even though there had been no direct violence.

(1909) 2 Cr App R 96
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.547667

Regina v C: HL 30 Jul 2009

Consent to Sex Requires Capacity

The prosecution appealed against the reversal of the defendant’s conviction for a sexual assault of a woman said to be unable to communicate her refusal to sex because of her mental disorder.
Held: The appeal was allowed, and the conviction restored. The case law on capacity has for some time recognised that, to be able to make a decision, the person concerned must not only be able to understand the information relevant to making it but also be able to ‘weigh [that information] in the balance to arrive at [a] choice’.
However the 2003 Act ‘puts the matter beyond doubt. A person is unable to refuse if he lacks the capacity to choose whether to agree to the touching ‘whether because he lacks sufficient understanding of the nature or reasonably foreseeable consequences of what is being done, or for any other reason’.
Provided that the inability to refuse is ‘because of or for a reason related to a mental disorder’, and the other ingredients of the offence are made out, the perpetrator is guilty.
The words ‘for any other reason’ are clearly capable of encompassing a wide range of circumstances in which a person’s mental disorder may rob them of the ability to make an autonomous choice, even though they may have sufficient understanding of the information relevant to making it.’
and ‘Once it is accepted that choice is an exercise of free will, and that mental disorder may rob a person of free will in a number of different ways and in a number of different situations, then a mentally disordered person may be quite capable of exercising choice in one situation but not in another. The complainant here, even in her agitated and aroused state, might have been quite capable of deciding whether or not to have sexual intercourse with a person who had not put her in the vulnerable and terrifying situation in which she found herself on 27 June 2007. The question is whether, in the state that she was in that day, she was capable of choosing whether to agree to the touching demanded of her by the defendant.’

Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferr, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Lord Mance
[2009] UKHL 42, Times 07-Aug-2009, [2010] 1 Cr App R 7, [2010] Crim LR 75, [2009] 4 All ER 1033, [2009] 1 WLR 1786
Bailii
Sexual Offences Act 2003 30(2)(b)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – C, Regina v CACD 2008
The defendant appealed against his conviction for sexual assault on a female when she suffered a mental condition which prevented her indicating her refusal of the touching.
Held: The complainant’s irrational fear due to her mental disorder . .
Cited – X City Council v MB and others; re MAB FD 13-Feb-2006
The adult patient was autistic. The doctors said that he lacked capacity, and the authority sought to prevent his return to Pakistan with, they thought, a view to being married. . .
Cited – NHS Trust v T (adult patient: refusal of medical treatment) FD 28-May-2004
The patient had a history of self harming leading to dangerously low haemoglobin levels. She knew that if she refused a blood transfusion she might die; nevertheless she believed that her blood was evil and that the healthy blood given her in a . .
Cited – Re C (Adult: Refusal of Treatment) FD 1994
C had been admitted to a secure hospital as a patient under Part III of the Mental Health Act 1983 because of his paranoid schizophrenia. He now sought an injunction to prevent the amputation of his gangrenous foot without his written consent. The . .
Cited – In re MB (Medical Treatment) CA 26-Mar-1997
The patient was due to deliver a child. A delivery by cesarean section was necessary, but the mother had a great fear of needles, and despite consenting to the operation, refused the necessary consent to anesthesia in any workable form.
Held: . .
Cited – Local Authority X v MM and Another; re MM (An Adult) FD 21-Aug-2007
The test for capacity to consent to sexual relations must be the same in its essentials as the test in the criminal law; more importantly ‘a woman either has capacity, for example, to consent to ‘normal’ penetrative vaginal intercourse, or she does . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Health

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.368924

Kensington International Ltd v Republic of Congo: CA 7 Nov 2007

The defendants appealed against orders requiring them to disclose documents in an action regarding the payment of bribes, saying that the requirement effectively required them to incriminate themselves.
Held: The appeal failed. The public interest required that those alleged to be in the possession of property belonging to a third party should be allowed to be obliged to divulge their whereabouts. The removal of the privilege against self incrimination could be ‘largely, if not entirely, balanced’ by the disclosed material being made inadmissible in criminal proceedings.
Moore-Bick LJ said that conduct involving dishonest abuse of a position (in which a person is expected to safeguard the financial interests of another person) with a view to gain for himself or another, or causing loss or risk of loss to another, could be described as deception of a kind, ‘since the wrongdoer deliberately deceives the person whose interests he is bound to safeguard by allowing him to believe in his trustworthiness while actively falsifying that belief’.
The question arose whether a person who commits a criminal offence of bribery also thereby commits an offence under section 328. It was argued that the giving of a bribe necessarily involves the briber entering into an arrangement which he knows facilitates the acquisition of criminal property by the recipient, since the bribe, once received, constitutes the latter’s benefit from criminal conduct. The argument was rejected. >br />Moore-Bick LJ said:
‘I accept that section 328 is of broad application, but in my view that seeks to stretch its scope too far. As section 340(3)(b) makes clear, the mental element of the offence includes knowledge or suspicion on the part of the defendant that the property in question is criminal property, but that cannot be the case until it has been acquired by means of criminal conduct. In order for an offence under section 328 to be committed, therefore, the arrangement into which the defendant enters, or in which he becomes involved, must be one which facilitates the acquisition, retention, use or control by another of property which has already become criminal property at the time when it becomes operative. That requirement is not satisfied if the only arrangement into which he enters is one by which the property in question first acquires its criminal character.’

May LJ, Carnwath LJ, Moore-Bick LJ
[2007] EWCA Civ 1128, Times 30-Nov-2007, [2008] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 161, [2007] 2 CLC 791, [2008] 1 All ER (Comm) 934, [2008] 1 WLR 1144, [2008] CP Rep 6
Bailii
Fraud Act 2006 13(1)(a), Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 328(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Kensington International Ltd v Republic of The Congo ComC 16-Apr-2003
. .
See Also – Kensington International Ltd v Republic of the Congo CA 13-May-2003
The claimant had obtained judgment against the defendant for US$60m, and had sought a Mareva injunction against the defendant republic’s assets and against the assets of companies through which it operated in the UK. The claimant now appealed . .
See Also – Kensington International Ltd v Republic of the Congo; Glencore Energy UK Limited, Sphynx UK Limited, Sphynx (BDA) Limited, Africa Oil and Gas Corporation, Cotrade SA (Third Parties) ComC 28-Nov-2005
The claimant had taken an assignment of debts owed by the defendant, and obtained judgment in US$121m. They sought to enforce the judgment and obtained third party debt orders against the parties listed.
Held: Officers in the third party . .
See Also – Kensington International Ltd and Another v Republic Of the Congo ComC 26-May-2006
. .
See Also – Kensington International Ltd v Republic of Congo and Another ComC 20-Jul-2006
The claimant sought leave to cross examine an officer of the defendant in connection with his affidavit sworn in search order proceedings. The case had a history of deceit and dishonest oral evidence.
Held: Though such an order would be . .
See Also – Kensington International Ltd v Republic of the Congo ComC 13-Jul-2007
. .

Cited by:
Cited – ETI Euro Telecom International Nv v Republic of Bolivia and Another CA 28-Jul-2008
The parties were involved in an international investment dispute arbitration. An injunction had been sought to prevent repatriation of assets to Bolivia.
Held: The international system of arbitration was not subject to any national law and did . .
Cited – Cavell USA, Inc and Randall v Seaton Insurance Company etc CA 16-Dec-2009
The parties had settled terms for concluding business arrangements between them. The agreement released and referred all claims in law and in equity ‘save for fraud’ to the UK courts. The respondents now wanted to bring a case alleging breach of a . .
Cited – Phillips v Mulcaire SC 24-May-2012
The claimant worked as personal assistant to a well known public relations company. She alleged that the defendant had intercepted telephone message given by and left for her. The court was asked first as to whether the information amounted to . .
Cited – GH, Regina v SC 22-Apr-2015
Appeal against conviction for entering into an arrangement for the retention of criminal funds. The defendant said that at the time of the arrangement there were not yet any criminal funds in existence. A had set up websites intending to con . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

International, Human Rights, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.260272

Pagett, Regina v: CACD 3 Feb 1983

Jury Directions on Causation

The appellant shot at police officers who were attempting to arrest him for various serious offences. The appellant had with him a 16 year old girl who was pregnant by him. Against her will he used her body to shield him from any retaliation by the officers. The officers returned his fire and as a result the girl was killed. The appellant was charged with her murder. The trial judge left both murder and manslaughter to the jury. The appellant was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
Held: For the judge to direct the jury as to the relevant principles relating to causation and then leave it to the jury to decide whether or not, in the light of those principles, the relevant causal link had been established. In the rare case in which it was necessary to direct the jury’s minds to the question of causation, it was usually enough to direct them simply that in law the accused’s act need not be the sole cause, or even the main cause, of the victim’s death, it being enough that the act contributed significantly to that result.
Robert Goff LJ said: ‘In cases of homicide, it is rarely necessary to give the jury any direction on causation as such. Of course, a necessary ingredient of the crimes of murder and manslaughter is that the accused has by his act caused the victim’s death. But how the victim came by his death is usually not in dispute . . Even where it is necessary to direct the jury’s minds to the question of causation, it is usually enough to direct them simply that in law the accused’s act need not be the sole cause, or even the main cause, of the victim’s death, it being enough that his act contributed significantly to that result . . Occasionally, however, a specific issue of causation may arise. One such case is where, although an act of the accused constitutes a causa sine qua non of (or necessary condition for) the death of the victim, nevertheless the intervention of a third person may be regarded as the sole cause of the victim’s death, thereby relieving the accused of criminal responsibility. Such intervention, if it has such an effect, has often been described by lawyers as a novus actus interveniens . We are aware that this time-honoured Latin term has been the subject of criticism. We are also aware that attempts have been made to translate it into English; though no simple translation has proved satisfactory, really because the Latin term has become a term of art which conveys to lawyers the crucial feature that there has not merely been an intervening act of another person, but that that act was so independent of the act of the accused that it should be regarded in law as the cause of the victim’s death, to the exclusion of the act of the accused. At the risk of scholarly criticism, we shall for the purposes of this judgment continue to use the Latin term . . in cases where there is an issue whether the act of the victim or of a third party constituted a novus actus interveniens, breaking the causal connection between the act of the accused and the death of the victim, it would be appropriate for the judge to direct the jury, of course in the most simple terms, in accordance with the legal principles which they have to apply.’

Robert Goff LJ, Cantley, Farquharson JJ
[1983] EWCA Crim 1, (1983) 76 Cr App R 279, [1983] Crim LR 394
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gnango, Regina v SC 14-Dec-2011
The prosecutor appealed against a successful appeal by the defendant against his conviction for murder. He and an opponent had engaged in a street battle using guns. His opponent had shot an innocent passer by. The court was now asked as to whether . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.247946

Southwark London Borough Council v Williams: CA 1971

No Defence of Homelessness to Squatters

The defendants, in dire need of housing accommodation entered empty houses owned by the plaintiff local authority as squatters. The court considered the defence of necessity.
Held: The proper use of abandoned council properties is best determined by political decision making processes. Squatters, in urgent need of accommodation, could not claim a defence of necessity because the peril they found themselves in was ‘an obstinate and longstanding state of affairs’, rather than an immediate or emergent threat. The court denied that if a starving beggar takes the law into his own hands and steals food he is not guilty of theft.
Lord Denning MR said: ‘If homelessness were once admitted as a defence to trespass, no one’s house could be safe. Necessity would open a door no man could shut. It would not only be those in extreme need who would enter. There would be others who would imagine they were in need or would invent a need, so as to gain entry. The plea would be an excuse for all sorts of wrongdoing. So the courts must refuse to admit the plea of necessity to the hungry and the homeless: and trust that their distress will be relieved by the charitable and good.’
Edmund Davies LJ said: ‘But when and how far is the plea of necessity available to one who is prima facie guilty of tort? Well, one thing emerges with clarity from the decisions and that is that the law regards with the deepest suspicion any remedies of self-help and permits those remedies to be resorted to only in very special circumstances. The reason for such circumspection is clear -necessity can very easily become simply a mask for anarchy.’

Lord Denning MR, Edmund-Davies LJ
[1971] 1Ch 734, [1971] 2 All ER 175, [1971] 2 WLR 467
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Monsanto Plc v Tilly and Others CA 30-Nov-1999
A group carried out direct action in protesting against GM crops by pulling up the plants. The group’s media liaison officer, while not actually pulling up plants himself, ‘reconnoitred the site the day before. He met the press at a prearranged . .
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 . .
Cited – White v Withers Llp and Dearle CA 27-Oct-2009
The claimant was involved in matrimonial ancillary relief proceedings. His wife was advised by the defendants, her solicitors, to remove his private papers. The claimant now sought permission to appeal against a strike out of his claim against the . .
Cited – Regina v Burns, Paul CACD 27-Apr-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction for assault. He had picked up a sex worker, driven away, but then changed his mind, and forcibly removed her from the car when she delayed. He now argued that he had the same right at common law to . .
Cited – City of London v Samede and Others QBD 18-Jan-2012
The claimant sought an order for possession of land outside St Paul’s cathedral occupied by the protestor defendants, consisting of ‘a large number of tents, between 150 and 200 at the time of the hearing, many of them used by protestors, either . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Torts – Other, Crime, Housing, Land

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.183171

Regina v Tabassum: CACD 11 May 2000

The defendant had pretended to be medically qualified in order to obtain the opportunity to examine women’s breasts. He appealed against his conviction for indecent assault, saying that the complainants had consented to the examinations.
Held: Where consent was given only because the victim was misled into believing that the defendant was a medical practitioner, the consent which had been was as to the nature of the act, but not as to its quality. The fraud vitiated the consent. Consent did not exist because the act consented to was not that done. The consent was to examination for medical purposes by a practitioner. That act was of a different nature. The defendant had argued that an ‘undoubted consent’ could only be negatived if the victim had been deceived or mistaken about the nature and quality of the act, and that consent was not negatived ‘merely because the victim would not have agreed to the act if he or she had known all the facts’. That argument failed. The court observed: ‘there was no true consent’.

Rose LJ VP, Kennedy, Hallett JJ
Times 26-May-2000, Gazette 31-May-2000, [2000] 2 CAR 328, [2000] EWCA Crim 90, [2000] 2 Cr App Rep 328, [2000] Crim LR 686, [2000] Lloyds Rep Med 404, [2000] All ER (D) 649
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Considered – Regina v Clarence CCCR 20-Nov-1888
The defendant knew that he had gonorrhea. He had intercourse with his wife, and infected her. She would not have consented had she known. He appealed his convictions for assault and causing grievous bodily harm.
Held: ‘The question in this . .
Cited – Regina v Linekar CACD 21-Oct-1994
L appealed against his conviction for rape. His victim was a woman working as a prostitute. He said that he had simply made off afterwards without payment. He was convicted on the basis that he had procured the act by a false pretence by him that he . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Dica CACD 5-May-2004
Reckless HIV transmission – Grievous Bodily Harm
The defendant appealed against his conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm. He had HIV/Aids, and was found to have transmitted the disease by intercourse when the victims were not informed of his condition. It was not suggested that any rape . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Health Professions

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.85580

Adams, Regina v (Northern Ireland): SC 13 May 2020

Secretary of State alone to consider confinement

The appellant had been detained under an Interim Custody Order (ICO) during internment during the troubles in Ireland, and then convicted of attempting to escape and escaping. He now appealed from that conviction saying that the order under which he had been detailed had been unlawful, In that the Secretary of State had been required to consider the evidence for detention personally, but had not done so.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The statutory language in this instance is unmistakably clear. It is the Secretary of State who must consider whether the person concerned is suspected of being involved in terrorism etc. Clear and distinct roles were assigned to the SS and to others. Absent the possible invocation of the Carltona principle, there could be no doubt that resort to the power to make an ICO was reserved to the Secretary of State alone. The matter should be approached as a matter of textual analysis, unencumbered by the application of a presumption, but with the enjoinder of Lord Griffiths well in mind.
‘The making of the ICO in respect of the appellant was invalid. It follows that he was not detained lawfully. It further follows that he was wrongfully convicted of the offences of attempting to escape from lawful custody and his convictions for those offences must be quashed.’

Lord Kerr, Lady Black, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Kitchin, Lord Burnett
[2020] UKSC 19, UKSC 2018/0104
Bailii, Bailii Summary, SC 2019 11 19am Video, SC 20 11 19 pm Video, SC, SC summary, SC Summary Video
Detention of Terrorists (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
Northern Ireland
Citing:
Appeal from – Adams, Regina v CANI 14-Feb-2018
Appeal against convictions on 20 March 1975 and 18 April 1975 on counts of attempting to escape from detention contrary to paragraph 38(a) of Schedule 1 of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 (‘the 1973 Act’) and common law.
Cited – Carltona Ltd v Commissioners of Works CA 1943
Ministers May Act through Civil Servants
The plaintiffs owned a factory which was to be requisitioned. They sought a judicial review of the lawfulness of the order making the requisition, saying that the 1939 Regulations had been implemented not by the Minister as required, but by an . .
Not approved – Re Golden Chemicals Limited 1976
In issue was a provision in the 1967 Act which stated that, if it appeared to the Secretary of State that it was expedient in the public interest that a corporate body should be wound up, he could present a petition for its winding-up. That power . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Oladehinde HL 18-Oct-1990
A decision at Senior Executive Officer level was accepted as appropriate in a deportation case. There was an express form of delegation, and acts of the immigration officers required to be regarded as the acts of the Home Secretary.
Lord . .
Cited – Doody v Secretary of State for the Home Department CACD 1992
The Court considered the procedure for fixing the period for which prisoners sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment should serve for retribution and deterrence before their sentences could be reviewed. Held Staughton LJ considered the issue of . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Doody and Others HL 25-Jun-1993
A mandatory lifer is to be permitted to suggest the period of actual sentence to be served. The Home Secretary must give reasons for refusing a lifer’s release. What fairness requires in any particular case is ‘essentially an intuitive judgment’, . .
Cited – Regina v Harper CANI 1990
The appellant had been convicted of a number of serious offences, largely as a result of admissions made by him during interviews by the police. Among the grounds of appeal was a claim that extension of the appellant’s detention had wrongly been . .
Cited – McCafferty, Re Writ of Habeas Corpus CANI 16-Dec-2009
The applicant was a prisoner who had been released on licence while serving a sentence for possession of an explosive substance. His licence was revoked, and he was arrested a month after his release. The revocation of the licence was authorised by . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Prisons

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.650771

McDonald v Regina: CACD 16 Dec 2011

The defendant appealed against his convictions for murder and other offences of violence. He complained of the admission of bad character evidence against him, in the form of convictions for the use of firearms.
Held: The appeal failed. The bad characate revidence had not merely been used to bolster a weak case. There was other evidence, even discounting the identification evidence which amply supported the conviction: ‘the bad character evidence was significant. It was not simply of violence, it was of violence with firearms. It demonstrated access to firearms and a readiness to use one. It is not surprising, therefore, that it featured significantly in the prosecution case and in the summing up.’ Though there were some irregularities in the case, the convictions remained safe.

Stanley Burnton LJ, Stadlen, Morris JJ
[2011] EWCA Crim 2933
Bailii
Criminal Justice Act 2003 98 113
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Hanson; Regina v Gilmore; Regina v Pickstone CACD 22-Mar-2005
In each case complaint was made about the way in which the judge had dealt with applications by the Crown to bring in the defendant’s bad character as evidence of his propensity to commit the crime.
Held: The court set out the applicable . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.450061

Smith, Regina (on The Application of) v Crown Prosecution Service: Admn 24 Nov 2010

The claimant sought judicial review of the defendant’s refusal to discontinue the prosecution of the claimant. The judge had suggested that the defendant could submit to a restraining order without a finding of guilt. The CPS had concluded that no such agreement could be reached after an acquittal on the offer of no evidence, but rather required an acquittal after a trial.
Held: Review was granted. Though there might be circumstances weere it would be proper to allow the prosecutor to withdraw from such an offer, it was clear that in this case there had been an agreement reached. Each such situation must be assessed on its own facts.

Ouseley J
[2010] EWHC 3593 (Admin)
Bailii
Protection from Harassment Act 1997 2
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Mahdi CACD 15-Mar-1993
There had been delay in the prosecution. Eventually, the prosecutor sought another adjournment before Judge Clarkson, who said ‘it is to be recorded that this is the last time that there will be an adjournment for the benefit of the prosecution.’ He . .
Cited – Regina v Bloomfield CACD 25-Jun-1996
It was an abuse of process to proceed with a prosecution in the face of an unequivocal statement by counsel for the Crown to the Court that the prosecution would tender no evidence. There was no change of circumstances which might have justified . .
Cited – Nembhard v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 21-Jan-2009
The defendant appealed against his conviction for failing to produce his driving documents, saying that the local police had stopped some 55 times in the previous 12 months, and that the request was improper and an abuse.
Held: ‘An officer can . .
Cited – Regina v Abu Hamza CACD 28-Nov-2006
The defendant had faced trial on terrorist charges. He claimed that delay and the very substantial adverse publicity had made his fair trial impossible, and that it was not an offence for a foreign national to solicit murders to be carried out . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Criminal Practice, Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.431940

Evans (Gemma), Regina v: CACD 2 Apr 2009

The applicant appealed against her conviction for gross negligence manslaughter. Her half sister had died of a heroin overdose. Instead of calling for assistance when she had complained, the defendant and her mother had put the deceased to bed fearing that they would themselves be in trouble if she was taken to hospital.
Held: Where a defendant created or helped to create a situation where another’s life was put at risk, they came under a duty to assist notwithstanding the absence of any duty arising from a family or professional connection, and could be guilty of gross negligence manslaughter for failing to satisfy that duty. The nature of any duty of care asserted was a matter of law. Where there was any dispute, the existence of any facts sufficient to support the existence of the duty was for the jury. Understood in this way, there would be no conflict with human rights law.

Lord Judge, Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Moore-Bick, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith, Mr Justice Christopher Clarke and Mr Justice Holroyde
[2009] 1 WLR 1999, [2009] EWCA Crim 650, [2009] Crim LR 661, [2010] 1 All ER 13, [2009] 2 Cr App R 10, (2009) 110 BMLR 1
Bailii, Times
Eurpean Convention on Human Rights 6 7
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Miller HL 17-Mar-1982
The defendant, a vagrant, fell asleep in an empty house. His lighted cigarette fell onto his mattress, and a fire started. Rather than put it out, he moved to another room. He was accused of arson.
Held: He was guilty. A defendant would be . .
Cited – Regina v Willoughby CACD 6-Dec-2004
The Defendant appealed against his conviction for gross negligence manslaughter. He had recruited another man to assist him in burning down his own premises. In the course of the offence an explosion killed the other man. He said he owed him no duty . .
Cited – Regina v Wacker CACD 31-Jul-2002
The defendant had been convicted of manslaughter. He had been driving a lorry into the UK. 58 illegal immigrants died in the rear. He appealed against his conviction for gross negligence manslaughter, saying that because the victims were engaged in . .
Cited – Regina v Shulman, Regina v Prentice, Regina v Adomako; Regina v Holloway HL 1-Jul-1994
An anaesthetist failed to observe an operation properly, and did not notice that a tube had become disconnected from a ventilator. The patient suffered a cardiac arrest and died, and the defendant was convicted of manslaughter, being guilty of gross . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Human Rights

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.329550

Lawrence v Metropolitan Police Commissioner: HL 30 Jun 1971

The defendant, a taxi driver, had without objection on the part of an Italian student asked for a fare of andpound;6 for a journey for which the correct lawful fare was 10s 6d. The taxi driver was convicted of theft. On appeal the main contention was that the student had consented to pay the fare. But it was clear that the appellant had not told the student what the lawful fare was.
Held: Section 1(1) of the 1968 Act is not to be read as if it contained such words as ‘without having the consent of the owner’. A theft is complete upon proof of the statutory elements: (i) a dishonest (ii) appropriation (iii) of property belonging to another (iv) with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it. ‘That there was appropriation in this case is clear. Section 3(1) states that any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner amounts to an appropriation. Here there was clearly such an assumption. That an appropriation was dishonest may be proved in a number of ways. In this case it was not contended that the appellant had not acted dishonestly.’ Where consent is in issue, it is relevant, not to appropriation, but to dishonesty. Consent in the context of the law of theft means true consent with full knowledge of the relevant facts. belief that the passenger gave informed consent (i.e. knowing that he was paying in excess of the fare) ‘is relevant to the issue of dishonesty, not to the question whether or not there has been an appropriation.’ Sections 1(1) and 15(1) of the Act are not mutually exclusive. If the facts proved justify a conviction under section 15(1), there can lawfully be a conviction under section 1(1) on the same facts.

Viscount Dilhorne
[1972] AC 626, [1971] 3 WLR 225, [1971] 2 All ER 1253, [1971] UKHL 2
Bailii
Theft Act 1968 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Regina v Lawrence (Alan) CACD 1970
The offence created by section 1(1) of the 1968 Act involved four elements: ‘(i) a dishonest (ii) appropriation (iii) of property belonging to another (iv) with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it.’ . .

Cited by:
Approved – Director of Public Prosecutions v Gomez HL 3-Dec-1992
The defendant worked as a shop assistant. He had persuaded the manager to accept in payment for goods, two cheques which he knew to be stolen. The CA had decided that since the ownership of the goods was transferred on the sale, no appropriation of . .
Considered – Regina v Morris (David) CACD 1983
Two defendants worked together to alter the labels on joints of meat in a supermarket, and to present the one with the now reduced price at the till. The appealed convictions for theft saying that since the purchase transferred the property in the . .
Applied – Regina v Morris (David); Anderton v Burnside HL 2-Jan-1983
The defendants had been accused of theft. One switched labels on a joint of pork in a supermarket, and the other presented the meat with the now cheaper label for purchase.
Held: The appeals were dismissed. There can be no conviction for theft . .
Cited – Regina v Shuck CACD 1992
The defendant was a company officer. He gave instructions to an innocent third party which resulted in the dishonest diversion of substantial sums of the company’s money. He appealed the judge’s interpretation of the word ‘appropriation.’
Cited – Wheatley and Another v The Commissioner of Police of the British Virgin Islands PC 4-May-2006
(The British Virgin Islands) The defendants appealed against convictions for theft and misconduct. Being civil servants they had entered in to contract with companies in which they had interests. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.189995

Regina v Howell (Errol): CACD 1981

The court considered the meaning of the legal concept of a breach of the peace.
Held: The essence is to be found in violence or threatened violence. ‘We entertain no doubt that a constable has a power of arrest where there is reasonable apprehension of imminent danger of a breach of the peace; so for that matter has the ordinary citizen. We hold there is a power of arrest for breach of the peace where (1) a breach of the peace is committed in the presence of the person making the arrest, or (2) the arrestor reasonably believes that such a breach of the peace will be committed in the immediate future by the person arrested although he has not yet committed any breach, or (3) where a breach has been committed and it is reasonably believed that a renewal of it is threatened’. And
‘We are emboldened to say that there is a breach of the peace whenever harm is actually done or likely to be done to a person or in his presence to his property or a person is in fear of being so harmed through an assault, an affray, a riot, unlawful assembly or other disturbance. It is for this breach of the peace when done in his presence that a constable, or anyone else, may arrest an offender without warrant’. Justices, for three or more centuries have managed to cope with the offence of breach of the peace, not only as to when conduct has caused such a breach but also as to whether it was likely to do so: ‘ . . . since keeping the peace in this country in the latter half of the 20th century presents formidable problems which bear upon the evolving process of the development of this breach of the common law. Nevertheless, even in these days when affrays, riotous behaviour and other disturbances happen all too frequently. We cannot accept that there can be a breach of the peace unless there has been an act done or threatened to be done which either actually harms a person, or in his presence his property, or is likely to cause such harm, or which puts someone in fear of such harm being done. There is nothing more likely to arouse resentment and anger in him, and a desire to take instant revenge, than attacks or threatened attacks on a person’s body or property.’ and ‘We hold that there is a power of arrest for breach of the peace where (1) a breach of the peace is committed in the presence of the person making the arrest … (2) the arrestor reasonably believes that such a breach will be committed in the immediate future by the person arrested although he has not yet committed any breach . . .’

Lord Justice Watkins
[1982] 1 QB 416, [1982] QB 416, [1981] 73 Crim App R 31
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Chief Constable of Cleveland Police v Mark Anthony McGrogan CA 12-Feb-2002
The Chief Constable appealed a finding of false imprisonment of the claimant. He had once been properly arrested, but before he was freed, it was decided that he should be held for court and an information laid alleging breach of the peace. They . .
Cited – Jarrett v Chief Constable of West Midlands Police CA 14-Feb-2003
The claimant sought damages for false imprisonment and assault after her wrongful arrest. She had waived her handbag at an officer investigating a disturbance and been arrested. The police said the arrest was lawful, she being suspected of common . .
Cited – The Chief Constable of Lancashire v Potter Admn 13-Oct-2003
The claimant appealed refusal of an Anti-Social Behaviour order by the magistrates. The respondent was a street prostitute in Preston. The magistrates had declined to aggregate her behaviour with that of others to find that it caused harrassment . .
Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the Application of) v Gloucestershire Constabulary and others Admn 19-Feb-2004
The court considered a claim for judicial review of a police officer’s decision to turn back a number of coaches. Each coach contained passengers en route to join a demonstration at an RAF base in Gloucestershire, the officer honestly and reasonably . .
Cited – Moss v McLachlan QBD 1985
Four striking miners were travelling in a convoy of motor vehicles and were stopped by a police cordon at a junction within several miles of four collieries. The inspector in charge believed with reason that a breach of the peace would be committed . .
Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the Application of) v Gloucestershire Constabulary and others CA 8-Dec-2004
The claimant had been in a bus taking her and others to an intended demonstration. The police feared breaches of the peace, and stopped the bus, and ordered the driver to return to London, and escorted it to ensure it did not stop.
Held: The . .
Cited – Regina v Nicol and Selvanayagam QBD 10-Nov-1995
The appellants appealed a bind-over for a finding that each appellant had been guilty of conduct whereby a breach of the peace was likely to be occasioned. The appellants, concerned about cruelty to animals, had obstructed an angling competition by . .
Cited – Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 23-Jul-1999
The police had arrested three peaceful but vociferous preachers when some members of a crowd gathered round them threatened hostility.
Held: Freedom of speech means nothing unless it includes the freedom to be irritating, contentious, . .
Cited – Wragg, Regina (on the Application Of) v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 15-Jun-2005
The court faced a case stated where the defendant had been accused of resisting arrest. The officers claimed to have anticipated a breach of the peace, having been called to a domestic dispute.
Held: Though the defendant had not behaved with . .
Cited – Hawkes v Director of Public Prosecutions CACD 2-Nov-2005
The defendant appealed her convictions for assaulting a police officer and obstructing him in the course of his duty. She had acted in an abusive manner, but there had been no violence.
Held: Whilst she might have been arrested on the basis . .
Cited – Hawkes, Regina (on the Application Of) v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 2-Nov-2005
The defendant appealed by way of case stated against her conviction for assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty. Her son was arrested in the early hours of the morning from her house. She followed him outside and sat in the police . .
Cited – Bibby v Chief Constable of Essex Police CA 6-Apr-2000
A bailiff sought to execute against goods in a shop against the will of the occupier. The police attended and when tempers were raised the police officer anticipated a breach of the peace by the bailiff and arrested him. He sought damages for that . .
Cited – Steel and Others v The United Kingdom ECHR 23-Sep-1998
The several applicants had been arrested in different circumstances and each charged with breach of the peace contrary to common law. Under the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980, the court can bind over a Defendant to keep the peace, if the Defendant . .
Cited – Laporte, Regina (on the application of ) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire HL 13-Dec-2006
The claimants had been in coaches being driven to take part in a demonstration at an air base. The defendant police officers stopped the coaches en route, and, without allowing any number of the claimants to get off, returned the coaches to London. . .
Not preferred – Moss v McLachlan QBD 1985
There had been violent conflict between members of different unons in the context of the miners’ strike. The police had found it difficult to maintain the peace. The appellants were four of about sixty striking miners intent on a mass demonstration . .
Followed – Percy v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 13-Dec-1994
A woman protester repeatedly climbed over the perimeter fencing into a military base.
Held: The defendant had a choice between agreeing to be bound over and going to prison. Her refusal to agree to be bound over had an immediate and obvious . .
Cited – Hashman and Harrup v The United Kingdom ECHR 25-Nov-1999
The defendants had been required to enter into a recognisance to be of good behaviour after disrupting a hunt by blowing of a hunting horn. They were found to have unlawfully caused danger to the dogs. Though there had been no breach of the peace, . .
Cited – Wright v Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis QBD 11-Sep-2013
The claimant sought damages for false imprisonment and infringement of his human rights in the manner of the defendant’s management of a demonstration in which he was involved. The issue was whether ilce action was justified on the basis that the . .
Cited – Humberside Police v McQuade CA 12-Jul-2001
Defendant’s appeal against an order giving judgment for the claimant in the action for damages to be assessed for wrongful arrest and personal injury. The claimant had been arrested in his home, purportedly for a breach of the peace. There was no . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Magistrates, Police

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.182926

Gora and others v Commissioners of Customs and Excise and others: CA 11 Apr 2003

The appellants challenged decisions of the VAT and Duties Tribunal after seizure of their goods, and in particular whether the cases had been criminal or civil cases and following Roth, whether the respondent’s policy had been lawful and proportionate.
Held: The present procedure does not involve the criminal courts and the absence of any criminal sanction, even modest, is a factor. The procedure by way of an application to restore goods can be described as determination of a criminal charge. The concepts of seizure and detention had long been distinguished in English law: ‘where liability to forfeiture has been determined by a court in condemnation proceedings, ‘there is no further room for fact finding by the Tribunal’ and it has no jurisdiction . . ‘Jurisdiction to decide whether any thing forfeited is to be restored under section 152(b) is with the Tribunal. The jurisdiction in condemnation proceedings is, by virtue of Schedule 3, with the courts. If the deeming provision in paragraph 5 of the Schedule operates, the thing in question shall be deemed to have been duly condemned as forfeited. The effect of this deeming provision is to provide that the thing is to be treated as forfeited.

Pill, Chadwick, Longmore LJJ
[2003] EWCA Civ 525, Times 23-Apr-2003, [2004] QB 93
Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights 6, Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 Sch3 para5, Human Rights Act 1998 Sch 1 Pt I art 6(1) Pt II, art 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Secretary of State for the Home Department v International Transport Roth Gmbh and others CA 22-Feb-2002
The Appellant had introduced a system of fining lorry drivers returning to the UK with illegal immigrants hiding away in their trucks. The rules had been found to be in breach of European law and an interference with their human rights. The . .
Cited – AGOSI v The United Kingdom ECHR 24-Oct-1986
Krugerrand coins were seized by the Commissioners and the claimant was unsuccessful in obtaining their restoration under what is now section 152(b) of the 1979 Act. It was argued that the request for restoration of the coins amounted to a . .
Cited – Air Canada v The United Kingdom ECHR 5-May-1995
Hudoc No violation of P1-1; No violation of Art. 6-1
An aeroplane was seized as liable to forfeiture pursuant to section 141(1) of the 1979 Act. It was restored on payment of a penalty of andpound;50,000. . .
Cited – Lauko v Slovakia ECHR 2-Sep-1998
The applicant was fined under the domestic Minor Offences Act for accusing his neighbours, without justification, of causing a nuisance. The government relied on the modesty of the punishment capable of being imposed and the fact that the offence . .
Cited – AP MP and TP v Switzerland ECHR 29-Aug-1997
Hudoc Judgment (Merits and just satisfaction) Violation of Art. 6-2; Not necessary to examine Art. 6-1; Not necessary to examine Art. 6-3; Costs and expenses award – Convention proceedings
Fines were imposed . .
Cited – Butler v United Kingdom ECHR 27-Jun-2002
A substantial confiscation order was made with respect to money seized from the applicant on the ground that customs officers believed the money was directly or indirectly the proceeds of drugs trafficking and/or was intended for use in drug . .
Cited – Goldsmith and Another v Commissioners of Customs and Excise QBD 7-Jun-2001
The applicants were stopped after bringing into the country 26 kilos of tobacco, without declaring it. The customs applied for an order condemning the tobacco. The applicants argued that the proceedings were, in effect, criminal proceedings, and . .
Cited – Regina (Mudie and Another) v Dover Magistrates’ Court and Another CA 4-Feb-2003
The applicants wished to challenge the confiscation of their goods by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise on their return to Dover. They appealed the refusal of Legal Aid.
Held: The Convention guaranteed the right to legal assistance for . .
Cited – Jacobsohn v Blake and Compton 13-Jan-1843
Custom-house officers took possession of goods landed by the plaintiff for the purpose of examination and detained them upon a misapprehension that they were prohibited and liable to forfeiture. In an action for trespass, the defence was that, there . .
Cited – Commissioners of Customs and Excise v Venn and Others QBD 11-Dec-2001
The concept of forfeiture in the Act was dependent upon the seizure of goods. The Act also made a distinction between the initial detention of goods and formal seizure. The six months time limit under the Magistrates Courts Act was calculated from . .

Cited by:
Cited – Commissioners of Customs and Excise v Dickinson ChD 15-Oct-2003
The applicant had returned to England with a quantity of goods which the Customs and Excise deemed were not for his personal use. His car was seized, but ordered to be restored by the VAT and Duties Tribunal.
Held: There was now a two track . .
Obiter – Gascoyne v Customs and Excise and Another CA 28-Jul-2004
The Commissioners had found what they considered to be an excess of dutiable goods brought into the country by the tax payer, and had forfeited the car. The court considered the effect of the Gora case.
Held: The difficult statements in Gora . .
Cited – Golobiewska v Commissioners of Customs and excise CA 6-May-2005
The owner of a motor vehicle which had been seized by Customs applied to have it restored.
Held: the 1994 Act placed the burden on the applicant to establish that she was entitled to the return of her car, but the standard of proof was the . .
Cited – Checkprice (UK) Ltd (In Administration) v HM Revenue and Customs Admn 31-Mar-2010
The claimant sought damages having been forced into liquidation after the defendant, it said, wrongfully seized its alcohol goods. Sales J had already held that the reasonable time had expired.
Held: Considering a claim for conversion of the . .
Cited – Revenue and Customs v Jones and Another CA 18-Jul-2011
HMRC appealed against an order for the return to the owner of goods seized under the 1979 Act. The respondents imported tobacco and alcohol which was seized. They said it had been for personal use. HMRC now said that the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to . .
Cited – Eastenders Cash and Carry Plc and Another v Revenue and Customs Admn 4-Nov-2010
Applications for judicial review in relation to alcoholic goods detained by the Defendants on grounds of a suspicion that duty may not have been paid in respect of them.
Sales J said: ‘In my view, there is a clear reason why Parliament wished . .
Cited – Eastenders Cash and Carry Plc and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Revenue and Customs SC 11-Jun-2014
Alcoholic drinks had been seized by the respondents pending further enquiries with a view to a possible forfeiture, then held and returned but only under court order. The company had complained that the detention of the goods was unlawful. The . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Customs and Excise, Crime, Human Rights

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.180739

Regina v Brown (K): CACD 1984

Jury Directions: Common Element in Several Charges

The defendant was accused of fraudulently inducing the investment of money. inducing four people to acquire shares in a company by making misleading statements. The particulars given in the count identified five statements allegedly made by him in the knowledge that they were misleading, deceptive, or false. The means by which that investment was induced was an essential ingredient. A number of matters were specified in the charge as together constituting that ingredient.
Held:
The jury was correctly told that it was not necessary for all jurors to accept all five statements particularised in the count in order for a conviction; it was sufficient if each was satisfied in respect of one. But in the course of his summing-up and in answer to a question from the jury the trial Judge had said: ‘It does not matter that some of you are satisfied that one of the various statements is made out, and others of you are satisfied not about that statement being made out but that another is made out. It is sufficient if you are all agreed that there was a dishonest inducement. So if you find some of you are satisfied that representation A was made out, some of you are not satisfied about that but are satisfied that representation B was made out, then it does not matter, provided that you are all satisfied that there was the dishonest inducement made and that it operated upon the mind of the person to whom it was made and caused him to act in the way that he did.’
the direction that it was not necessary for the jury to be unanimous as to the relevant representation was wrong. The Court said:[14]
Counsel for the appellant was correct in his submission that it is a fundamental principle that in arriving at their verdict the jury must be agreed that every single ingredient necessary to constitute the offence has been established. The false statement is an essential ingredient . . In a case such as that with which we are now dealing, the following principles apply: 1. Each ingredient of the offence must be proved to the satisfaction of each and every member of the jury (subject to the majority direction).
2. However, where a number of matters are specified in the charge as together constituting one ingredient in the offence, and any one of them is capable of doing so, then it is enough to establish the ingredient that anyone of them is proved; but (because of the first principle above) any such matter must be proved to the satisfaction of the whole jury. The jury should be directed accordingly, and it should be made clear to them as well that they should all be satisfied that the statement upon which they are agreed was an inducement as alleged.

Eveleigh L
[1984] 79 Cr App R 115, [1984] Crim LR 167
Theft Act 1978 1(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Sofroniou v Regina CACD 18-Dec-2003
The defendant appealed conviction on charges of obtaining services by deception under the section. He had obtained a credit card dishonestly and operated bank accounts dishonestly over a period of time.
Held: His acts could constitute the . .
Cited – Chargot Limited (T/A Contract Services) and Others, Regina v HL 10-Dec-2008
The victim died on a farm when his dumper truck overturned burying him in its load.
Held: The prosecutor needed to establish a prima facie case that the results required by the Act had not been achieved. He need only establish that a risk of . .
Cited – Chilvers, Regina v CACD 27-Aug-2021
Brown directions Rarely Required
The defendant appealed saying that a Brown direction should have been given.
Held: Brown directions were required in fairly rare situations. When the individual particulars were not said to be coterminous with an essential element or . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Criminal Practice

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.190219

Crown Prosecution Service v P; Director of Public Prosecutions v P: Admn 27 Apr 2007

The prosecutor appealed a grant of a stay of a prosecution of the 13 year old defendant as an abuse of process. Reports had indicated that he was unfit to plead. The prosecution contended that, if the court thought P ought not to face trial by reason of his disability, it should proceed to decide whether he had done the acts alleged and, if satisfied that he had, should then consider medical evidence and all the circumstances of the case before deciding whether an order under section 37(2) of the Mental Health Act was appropriate.
Held: Though the prosecutor’s appeal succeeded, the matter should not be remitted because of the delay. The were two separate questions; whether the defendant was able to understand and plead to the charge against him, and whether he would be able to take an effective part in the trial. It was for the court to decide this, not the doctors: ‘the medical evidence should be considered as part of the evidence in the case and not as the sole evidence on a freestanding application.’ That another court may have decided that a defendant was doli incapax did not prevent a later court taking a case forward. It had to decide the matter afresh. The power and duty to consider this was a continuing one throughout the trial. Obiter, section 34 has not abolished the doctrine of doli incapax, the presumption of incapacity for a child over 10. The change ruled out the presumption of incapacity, not the ability of a court to apply the doctrine where appropriate: ‘it must be the presumption that has been abolished.’

Smith LJ, Gross J
[2007] EWHC 946 (Admin), [2007] 4 All ER 628, [2008] 1 WLR 1005
Bailii
Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 11(2), Mental Health Act 1983 37(3), Crime and Disorder Act 1998 34
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina (P) v Barking Magistrates Court Admn 2002
P, a 16 year old boy with learning difficulties faced charges. A psychologist said his IQ was so low (52) that P would not be able to understand or reply rationally to the charges. The justices decided that he was fit to plead; they had formed a . .
Cited – Rex v Pritchard 21-Mar-1836
A person, deaf and dumb, was to be tried for a capital felony the Judge ordered a Jury to be impanneled, to try whether he was mute by the visitation of God, the jury found that he was so. The jury were then sworn to try whether he was able to . .
Cited – TP, Regina (on the Application of) v West London Youth Court and others Admn 21-Nov-2005
It had been submitted to the youth court that a boy of 15, with the intellectual capacity of an 8 year old, ought not to face trial. The district judge decided that the trial should proceed and the defendant sought judicial review.
Held: The . .
Cited – SC v United Kingdon ECHR 2004
SC when aged 11 was charged with attempted robbery. He had previous convictions, and was committed to the crown court for trial. He applied to stay the proceedings as an abuse of process on account of limited intellectual capacity, and inability . .
Cited – White, Regina (on the Application of) v the Justices of Barking Magistrates’ Court Admn 25-Feb-2004
A court was correct to refuse to enforce an expectation which was assumed to be otherwise legitimate on the basis that a sentence passed in accordance with that expectation would have been outside the range available to the sentencing court and . .
Cited – White, Regina (on the Application of) v the Justices of Barking Magistrates’ Court Admn 25-Feb-2004
A court was correct to refuse to enforce an expectation which was assumed to be otherwise legitimate on the basis that a sentence passed in accordance with that expectation would have been outside the range available to the sentencing court and . .
Cited – Regina v Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, ex Parte Bennett (No 1) HL 24-Jun-1993
The defendant had been brought to the UK in a manner which was in breach of extradition law. He had, in effect, been kidnapped by the authorities.
Held: The High Court may look at how an accused person was brought within the jurisdiction when . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v T CACD 16-Apr-2008
The twelve year old defendant had pleaded guilty to several allegations of sexual assault. The judge had ruled that it was not open to him to plead doli incapax. He appealed saying that only the presumption of doli incapax had been abolished, and . .
Cited – JTB, Regina v HL 29-Apr-2009
The defendant appealed against his convictions for sexual assaults. He was aged twelve at the time of the offences, but had been prevented from arguing that he had not known that what he was doing was wrong. The House was asked whether the effect of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Criminal Practice, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.251535

Mitchell, Regina v: CACD 12 Feb 2014

‘Is a paramedic employed by a National Health Service Trust in its ambulance service the holder of a public office so as to be subject to criminal sanction for misconduct?’
Held: The appeal succeeded; he was not: ‘the nature of the duty undertaken by ambulance paramedics was to treat and provide emergency healthcare to the individual patients for whose care they become responsible by reason of the circumstances in which they come into contact with them: it is a duty to the individual. In a general sense, of course, the public would be concerned by any example of a breach of the individual duty (such as occurred in this case) but that is not to say that there is a duty to the public which is different from, or additional to, the general duty owed to the individual. There is not.’
Lord Justice Leveson identified three tests: ‘First, what was the position held? Second, what is the nature of the duties undertaken by the employee or officer in that position? Third, does the fulfilment of those duties represent the fulfilment of one of the responsibilities of government such that the public have a significant interest in the discharge of the duty which is additional to or beyond an interest in anyone who might be directly affected by a serious failure in the performance of that duty? If the answer to this last question is ‘yes’, the relevant employee or officer is acting as a public officer; if ‘no’, he or she is not acting as a public officer.’

Sir Brian Leveson P QBD, Thirlwall, Lewis JJ
[2014] EWCA Crim 318, [2014] 2 Cr App R 2
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Rex v Bembridge 1783
The defendant was an accountant in the office and place of receiver and paymaster general. The court was asked whether he held a public office.
Held: A man who holds a public office is answerable criminally to the king for misbehaviour in that . .
Cited – Henly v Lyme Corporation 1828
The plaintiff owned property by the sea. It was swamped by the tide because the corporation, who had been granted land by the Crown subject to a condition that it maintain the sea-defences of the cob, had ‘wrongfully and unjustly intending to . .
Cited – Belton, Regina v CACD 9-Nov-2010
The appellant had, after a ruling by the judge, pleaded guilty to a charge that ‘while acting as a public officer, namely a member of the Independent Monitoring Board, wilfully misconducted herself by developing personal and inappropriate . .
Cited – Regina v Cosford and Others CACD 16-Apr-2013
The appellants, female prison workers, appealed against their convictions for misconduct in public office having been found to have engaged in sexual activity with male prisoners.
Held: The appeals were dismissed: ‘Nothing in the authorities . .

Cited by:
Cited – Ball v Johnson 29-May-2019
Summons granted for political lies allegation
(Westminster Magistrates Court) The court gave its reasons for acceding to a request for the issue of a summons requiring the defendant to answer a charge for three offences alleging misconduct in a public office.
Held: There was prima facie . .
Cited – Johnson v Westminster Magistrates’ Court Admn 3-Jul-2019
Public Office Misconduct – Acting As not While
The claimant sought judicial review of a decision to issue a summons against him alleging three offences of misconduct in public office. He was said to have issue misleading statements in support of the campaign leading up to the Referendum on . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.526964

Brown, Regina v (Northern Ireland): SC 26 Jun 2013

The complainaint, a 13 year old girl had first said that the defendant had had intercourse with her againt her consent. After his arrest, she accepted that this was untrue. On being recharged with unlawful intercourse, he admitted guilt believing he had no defence. The Court was now asked whether there was a requirement for the prosecution to prove a defendant had an absence of belief that the person they were having sexual intercourse with was over the age of 13, before they can be convicted of an offence of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 14.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘ there can really be no doubt that section 4 in its original form was intended to impose criminal liability for carnal knowledge of a female under the age of 13 without proof that the perpetrator knew or had reason to believe that she was below that age.’ That had not changed on the subsequent amendment of the Act.
Lord Kerr endorsed the proposition that an amended statute is to be construed as a whole in its amended form, although in so doing he did not suggest that the legislative history is to be ignored and he examined the purpose of the relevant amendment in its context.

Lord Neuberger, President, Lady Hale, Lord Kerr, Lord Wilson, Lord Reed
[2013] UKSC 43, UKSC 2011/0233, [2013] 4 All ER 860
Bailii, Bailii Summary, SC Summary, SC
Northern Ireland
Citing:
Appeal from – Brown, Regina v CANI 8-Sep-2011
The defendant appealed against his conviction for having had unlawful sex with an underage girl. He had pleaded guilty but now said this had been n a misunderstanding of the law. He had believed the girl to be 15, but his belief that that belief was . .
Cited – Regina v Prince 1875
The defendant was convicted of unlawfully taking an unmarried girl under the age of 16 out the possession of her father. The defendant bona fide and on reasonable grounds believed that the girl was over 16.
Held: This provided no defence. ‘It . .
Cited – North Wales Police v Anglesey Justices and Another Admn 5-Feb-2008
Maurice Kay LJ said: ‘Mr Wells submits, and I accept, that the form and content of the summons are not strictly relevant to the question whether the proceedings were initiated by complaint rather than by the laying of an information. The essential . .
Cited – Gammon (Hong Kong) Ltd v A-G of Hong Kong PC 1984
Lord Scarman expressed the purpose of imposing strict liability within criminal law: ‘In their Lordships’ opinion, the law relevant to this appeal may be stated in the following propositions . . : (1) there is a presumption of law that mens rea is . .
Cited – Regina v K HL 25-Jul-2001
In a prosecution for an offence of indecent assault on a girl under 16 under the section, it was necessary for the prosecution to prove the absence of a positive belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 16 or over. The legislation history . .
Cited – Sweet v Parsley HL 23-Jan-1969
Mens Rea essential element of statutory Offence
The appellant had been convicted under the Act 1965 of having been concerned in the management of premises used for smoking cannabis. This was a farmhouse which she visited infrequently. The prosecutor had conceded that she was unaware that the . .
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Regina v J HL 14-Oct-2004
The defendant was to have been accused of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 16. Proceedings could not be brought, because the allegation was more than a year old, and he was instead accused of indecent assault, but on the same . .
Cited – Regina v Kumar CACD 16-Dec-2004
The defendant appealed a conviction for buggery of a complainant under the age of 16, saying that he had a genuine belief that the boy had been of age.
Held: Buggery was not an absolute offence. The amendments to the 1956 Act did not signify . .
Cited – Regina v G (Secretary of State for the Home Department intervening) HL 18-Jun-2008
The defendant was fifteen. He was convicted of statutory rape of a 13 year old girl, believing her to be 15. He appealed saying that as an offence of strict liability he had been denied a right to a fair trial, and also that the offence charged was . .

Cited by:
Cited – Brown (Jamaica), Regina (on The Applications of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 4-Mar-2015
B, an homosexual immigrant for Jamaica, resisted his return, saying that he would be prosecuted. The Secretary of State now appealed against a finding that his inclusion of Jamaica within the statutory list of safe countries for return was not . .
Cited – Lane and Another, Regina v SC 11-Jul-2018
The defendants were to be tried for allegedly sending funds abroad to support terrorism. The court now considered the meaning of the phrase ‘reasonable cause to suspect’ in the context of the anticipated use of the funds: ‘Does it mean that the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.511084

Regina v Martin (Colin): CACD 29 Nov 1988

Defence of Necessity has a Place in Criminal Law

The defendant appealed against his conviction for driving whilst disqualified. He said he had felt obliged to drive his stepson to work because his stepson had overslept. His wife (who had suicidal tendencies) had been threatening suicide unless he drove the boy to work, since she was so worried that her son might lose his job. He sought to bring the defence of necessity, but it had been disallowed.
Held: The appeal was allowed. The defence of necessity is recognised in English law. It was available if, viewed objectively, the defendant could be said to have acted reasonably to avoid death or serious injury, or the threat of it. When considering the defence of duress, what the jury had to be concerned with was the defendant’s perception of the threat with which he was confronted and to consider whether or not in relation to that perceived threat he acted reasonably and proportionately in responding as he did, and the question of whether or not there was actually a threat to justify his response is neither here nor there.
Simon Brown LJ said: ‘The principles may be summarised thus: first, English law does, in extreme circumstances, recognise a defence of necessity. Most commonly this defence arises as duress, that is pressure on the accused’s will from the wrongful threats or violence of another. Equally however it can arise from other objective dangers threatening the accused or others. Arising thus it is conveniently called ‘duress of circumstances’. Second, the defence is available only if, from an objective standpoint, the accused can be said to be acting reasonably and proportionately in order to avoid a threat of death or serious injury. Third, assuming the defence to be open to the accused on his account of the facts, the issue should be left to the jury, who should be directed to determine these two questions: first, was the accused, or may he have been, impelled to act as he did because as a result of what he reasonably believed to be the situation, he had good cause to fear that otherwise death or serious physical injury would result; second, if so, would a sober person of reasonable firmness, sharing the characteristics of the accused, have responded to that situation by acting as the accused acted? If the answer to both those questions was Yes, then the jury would acquit; the defence of necessity would have been established. That the defence is available in cases of reckless driving is established by Conway (supra) itself and indeed by an earlier decision of the court in Willer (1986) 83 Cr.App.R. 225. Conway is authority also for the proposition that the scope of the defence is no wider for reckless driving than for other serious offences. As was pointed out in the in the judgment, (1988) 88 Cr.App.R. at 164, [19888] 3 All E.R. at 1029h: ‘reckless driving can kill.’ We see no material distinction between offences of reckless driving and driving whilst disqualified so far as the application of the scope of this defence is concerned. Equally we can see no distinction in principle between various threats of death: it matters not whether the risk of death is by murder or by suicide or, indeed, by accident. One can illustrate the matter by considering a disqualified driver driven by his wife, she suffering a heart attack in remote countryside and he needing instantly to get her to hospital.’

Lord Lane LCJ, Simon Brown, Roch JJ
[1989] 1 All ER 652, [1988] 88 Cr App Rep 343, [1988] EWCA Crim 2
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Regina v Graham (Paul) CACD 18-Dec-1981
The defence of duress requires establishment of a reasonable belief. In judging the accused’s response the test is: ‘have the prosecution made the jury sure that a sober person of reasonable firmness, sharing the characteristics of the defendant, . .
Cited – Regina v Conway CACD 28-Jul-1988
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving. He said the offence was committed out of necessity, since his passenger’s life was under threat.
Held: Necessity can only be a defence to a charge of reckless driving where . .
Cited – Regina v Willer (Mark Edward) CACD 1986
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving (absolute discharge and ten penalty points). He drove his car slowly on the pavement in front of a shopping precinct. He said that this had seemed to him to be the only way in which . .

Cited by:
Approved – Regina v Cairns CACD 22-Feb-1999
The defendant had been driving a car. It was surrounded by a group of youths, one of whom threw himself on the bonnet of the car. The defendant, feeling threatened drove off, and the man on the bonnet was injured.
Held: When establishing the . .
Approved – Regina v Abdul-Hussain; Regina v Aboud; Regina v Hasan CACD 17-Dec-1998
The law of the defence of duress arising out of threat or circumstances is in need of urgent parliamentary clarification. Appeals were allowed where the defendants hijacked an airplane in order to escape deportation to a hostile country. ‘The . .
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
Cited – Jones and Milling, Olditch and Pritchard, and Richards v Gloucestershire Crown Prosecution Service CACD 21-Jul-2004
The court considered the extent to which the defendants in the proceedings can rely on their beliefs as to the unlawfulness of the United Kingdom’s actions in preparing for, declaring, and waging war in Iraq in 2003 in a defence to a charge of . .
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 . .
Cited – Regina v Shayler CACD 28-Sep-2001
Duress as Defence not closely Defined
The defendant had been a member of MI5. He had signed the Official Secrets Act, but then disclosed various matters, including material obtained by interceptions under the Interception of Communications Act. He claimed that his disclosures were made . .
Cited – Regina v Pommell CACD 16-May-1995
The defendant appealed against his conviction for possessing a loaded shotgun. He had wished to advance a defence to the effect that on the previous evening he had taken it ‘off a geezer who was going to do some damage with it’ in order to stop him. . .
Cited – Quayle and others v Regina, Attorney General’s Reference (No. 2 of 2004) CACD 27-May-2005
Each defendant appealed against convictions associated variously with the cultivation or possession of cannabis resin. They sought to plead medical necessity. There had been medical recommendations to move cannabis to the list of drugs which might . .
Cited – Regina v Jones (Margaret), Regina v Milling and others HL 29-Mar-2006
Domestic Offence requires Domestic Defence
Each defendant sought to raise by way of defence of their otherwise criminal actions, the fact that they were attempting to prevent the commission by the government of the crime of waging an aggressive war in Iraq, and that their acts were . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Ubhi Admn 11-Feb-2003
The prosecutors appealed the finding by the magistrates that there were special reasons for not disqualifying the defendant from driving after finding him guilty of driving with excess alcohol. He had driven his sister to hospital after she fell and . .
Cited – Regina v CS CACD 29-Feb-2012
The defendant appealed against the refusal of the judge to allow her defence of necessity in answer to a charge under section 1 of the 1984 Act. She said that it had been necessary to prevent the child being sexually abused.
Held: The appeal . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Road Traffic

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.186846

Beghal v Director of Public Prosecutions: SC 22 Jul 2015

Questions on Entry must be answered

B was questioned at an airport under Schedule 7 to the 2000 Act, and required to answer questions asked by appropriate officers for the purpose set out. She refused to answer and was convicted of that refusal , contrary to paragraph 18 of that Schedule. She appealed, saying that Schedule 7 was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and in particular with articles 8 5 and 6.
Held: Her appeal failed (Lord Kerr dissenting). Althought the detention and questioning was an interference with her humand rights, that interference was in accordance with a law providing sufficient protections, and was proportionate and had a proper founding in the need to prevent and detect terrorism. The detention had been for no longer than was necessary for these purposes. Answers given under such questioning should not be expected to put her at risk of prosecution, since they would in all likelihood not be admissible under s78 of the 1984 Act.
Lord Hughes said: ‘The Schedule 7 powers are patently not aimed at the obtaining of information for the purpose of prosecuting either the person questioned or his spouse. Whilst that does not by itself mean that there is no real risk that such information could be so used subsequently, it is an indicator that the process of information gathering is not to be limited by the operation of privilege. The reality is that Schedule 7 powers would be rendered very largely nugatory if privilege applied. The necessary implication is that it does not.
Lord Kerr said: ‘The opportunity to exercise a coercive power in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion is antithetical to its legality’

Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury PSC, Lord Dyson MR, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, Lord Hughes, Lord Hodge JJSC
[2015] UKSC 49, [2015] WLR(D) 330, [2016] AC 88, [2015] HRLR 15, [2015] 2 Cr App R 34, [2016] 1 All ER 483, [2015] 3 WLR 344, UKSC 2013/0243
Bailii, WLRD, Bailii Summary, SC, Sc Summary
Terrorism Act 2000, European Convention on Human Rights 8 5 6, Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 78
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Beghal v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 28-Aug-2013
The court considered the compatibility of the powers in Schedule 7 of the 2000 Act to ‘stop, question, and search’ with a detainee’s human rights.
Held: The powers were valid and required. . .
Cited – Marper v United Kingdom; S v United Kingdom ECHR 4-Dec-2008
(Grand Chamber) The applicants complained that on being arrested on suspicion of offences, samples of their DNA had been taken, but then despite being released without conviction, the samples had retained on the Police database.
Held: . .
Cited – MM v The United Kingdom ECHR 13-Nov-2012
ECHR The applicant complained about the retention and disclosure in the context of a criminal record check of data concerning a caution she received from the police. he applicant, who lived in Northern Ireland, . .
Cited – Regina v Boyes 1860
A witness, an accomplice in a criminal offence, who has received the pardon of the Crown under the Great Seal for that offence, has no privilege of refusing to answer questions relating to the offence, which may tend to criminate himself. He is . .
Cited – Regina v Hertfordshire County Council, ex parte Green Environmental Industries Ltd and Another HL 17-Feb-2000
A notice was given to the holder of a waste disposal licence to require certain information to be provided on pain of prosecution. The provision of such information could also then be evidence against the provider of the commission of a criminal . .
Cited – Rotaru v Romania ECHR 4-May-2000
Grand Chamber – The applicant, a lawyer, complained of a violation of his right to respect for his private life on account of the use against him by the Romanian Intelligence Service of a file which contained information about his conviction for . .
Cited – Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation v Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Re Westinghouse Electric Corpn Uranium Contract Litigation MDL Docket No 235 (No 2) HL 1977
The court considered a claim that a party was not compelled to give evidence where it might incriminate him: ‘No one is bound to furnish information against himself. It [the common law] says: ‘If a witness claims the protection of the court, on the . .
Cited – United States v Ramsey 6-Jun-1977
United States Supreme Court – Title 19 U.S.C. ss 482 and implementing postal regulations authorize customs officials to inspect incoming international mail when they have a ‘reasonable cause to suspect’ that the mail contains illegally imported . .
Cited – Rank Film Distributors v Video Information Centre CA 1980
The plaintiff film companies accused the defendants of pirating their films. They obtained Anton Piller orders which required the defendants to permit the plaintiffs to enter their premises to inspect and remove any unauthorised films, and three . .
Cited – Regina v Simmons 1988
(Supreme Court of Canada) A contraband search based on reasonable suspicion of the presence of smuggled material is an exception to the usual requirements for searches imposed by section 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Dickson CJ said: . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for The Home Department Ex Parte Simms HL 8-Jul-1999
Ban on Prisoners talking to Journalists unlawful
The two prisoners, serving life sentences for murder, had had their appeals rejected. They continued to protest innocence, and sought to bring their campaigns to public attention through the press, having oral interviews with journalists without . .
Cited – Amann v Switzerland ECHR 16-Feb-2000
Hudoc Judgment (Merits and just satisfaction) Violation of Art. 8 with regard to interception of telephone call; Violation of Art. 8 with regard to creation and storing of information card; Preliminary objection . .
Cited – Amann v Switzerland ECHR 16-Feb-2000
(Grand Chamber) Complaint as to non-disclosure of prosecution evidence.
Held: The holding and use of the information in question had not been ‘in accordance with the law’, as required by article 8(2), because of the absence from the relevant . .
Cited – Gillan and Quinton v The United Kingdom ECHR 12-Jan-2010
The claimants had been stopped by the police using powers in the 2000 Act. They were going to a demonstration outside an arms convention. There was no reason given for any suspicion that the searches were needed.
Held: The powers given to the . .
Cited – T and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department and Another SC 18-Jun-2014
T and JB, asserted that the reference in certificates issued by the state to cautions given to them violated their right to respect for their private life under article 8 of the Convention. T further claims that the obligation cast upon him to . .
Cited – Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis and Another v Times Newspapers Ltd and Another QBD 18-Apr-2011
The defendant had been sued in defamation, and now sought release of police records as to the claimant. . .
Cited – Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis and Another v Times Newspapers Ltd and Another QBD 24-Oct-2011
The claimant accused the defendant newspaper and journalist of breach of confidence, conversion and Data Protection breach. They said that he had received and published extracts from a confidential internal document leaked to him. . .
Cited – Austin and Others v The United Kingdom ECHR 15-Mar-2012
Grand Chamber – The applicants complained that their restriction within a police cordon (a measure known as ‘kettling’) for up to seven hours during the course of a demonstration in central London amounted to a deprivation of their liberty in breach . .
Cited – Ferdinand Jozef Colon v The Netherlands ECHR 15-May-2012
Acting under the Municipalities Act, with the authority of a byelaw passed by the local council, the Burgomaster of Amsterdam designated most of the old centre of Amsterdam as a security risk area for a period of six months and again for a further . .
Cited – Sociedade Nacional de Combustatives de Angola UEE v Lundqvist CA 1990
Large quantities of crude oil had been sold at an undervalue by a dishonest consultant and his associates. A Mareva injunction had been granted. The defendant objected to being required to disclose the extent of his foreign assets saying that such . .
Cited – Saunders v The United Kingdom ECHR 17-Dec-1996
(Grand Chamber) The subsequent use against a defendant in a prosecution, of evidence which had been obtained under compulsion in company insolvency procedures was a convention breach of Art 6. Although not specifically mentioned in Article 6 of the . .
Cited – Rekvenyi v Hungary ECHR 20-May-1999
Hudoc Grand Chamber – No violation of Art. 10; No violation of Art. 11; No violation of Art. 14+10; No violation of Art. 14+11 Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1999-III
The level of precision required of . .
Cited – Swiggs and others v Nagarajan HL 15-Jul-1999
Bias may not be intentional
The applicant claimed that he had been denied appointment to a job with London Regional Transport because he had brought a number of previous race discrimination claims against it or associated companies. An industrial tribunal had upheld his claim . .
Cited – Igen Ltd v Wong CA 18-Feb-2005
Proving Discrimination – Two Stage Process
Each appeal raised procedural issues in discrimination cases, asking where, under the new regulations, the burden of proof had shifted.
Held: The new situation required a two stage process before a complaint could be upheld. First the claimant . .
Cited – Gillan and Quinton v The United Kingdom ECHR 12-Jan-2010
The claimants had been stopped by the police using powers in the 2000 Act. They were going to a demonstration outside an arms convention. There was no reason given for any suspicion that the searches were needed.
Held: The powers given to the . .
Cited – Ambrose v Harris, Procurator Fiscal, Oban, etc SC 6-Oct-2011
(Scotland) The appellant had variously been convicted in reliance on evidence gathered at different stages before arrest, but in each case without being informed of any right to see a solicitor. The court was asked, as a devolution issue, at what . .
Cited – Quila and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 12-Oct-2011
Parties challenged the rule allowing the respondent to deny the right to enter or remain here to non EU citizens marrying a person settled and present here where either party was under the age of 21. The aim of the rule was to deter forced . .
Cited – Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury (No 2) SC 19-Jun-2013
The bank challenged measures taken by HM Treasury to restrict access to the United Kingdom’s financial markets by a major Iranian commercial bank, Bank Mellat, on the account of its alleged connection with Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic . .
Cited – Gahramanov v Azerbaijan ECHR 15-Oct-2013
(Admissibility) The applicant was prevented for (on his own case) some four hours from leaving, after being stopped at an airport.
Held: The complaint was inadmissible on the ground that it had not been shown that he had been obliged to remain . .
Cited – Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 12-Nov-2014
The claimant had supported the grant of a visa to a woman in order to speak to members of Parliament who was de facto leader of an Iranian organsation which had in the past supported terrorism and had been proscribed in the UK, but that proscription . .

Cited by:
Cited – Roberts, Regina (on the application of) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and another SC 17-Dec-2015
The Court considered the validity of suspicionless stop and search activities under s 60 of the 1994 Act, by police officers.
Held: The claimant’s appeal failed. The safeguards attending the use of the s 60 power, and in particular the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Human Rights, Police, Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.550389

Jones v First Tier Tribunal and Another: SC 17 Apr 2013

The claimant had been injured when a lorry driver swerved to avoid hitting a man who stood in his path. He said that the deceased’s act of suicide amounted to an offence of violence under the 1861 Act so as to bring his own claim within the 2001 Scheme.
Held: The appeal was allowed, restoring the decision of the FTT that the claim was correctly rejected. The Court of Appeal had been unable to show sufficient reason for disturbing the decision of the First Tier Tribunal.
The Scheme’s terms did not allow an award to be made in these circumstances. The term crime of violence’ required two elements. First had a criminal offence been committed, and second, given the nature of the act, was it properly characterised as violent. That second question had to cover a wide range of possibilities, and a fact finding exercise may be appropriate. Here, however, it had not been shown that the suicide’s actions would all within section 20 of the 1861 Act. The FTT was entitled to conclude that it has not been shown that the suicide intended to cause harm or was reckless as to whether harm of whatever degree might be caused by his actions. The development of a consistent approach to the application of the expression ‘crime of violence’, within the statutory scheme, was a task primarily for the tribunals, not the appellate courts.

Lord Hope of Craighead DPSC, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Sumption, Lord Carnwath JJSC, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
UKSC 2011/0123, [2013] UKSC 19, [2013] 2 WLR 1012, [2013] 2 All ER 625, [2013] WLR(D) 142, [2013] 2 AC 48
Bailii, SC Summary, SC, Bailii Summary, WLRD
Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2001 6 8, Offences against the Person Act 1861
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Jones v First Tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) CA 12-Apr-2011
The claimant had been driving his lorry. A man jumped in front of a second lorry in an apparent attempt to commit suicide. In a failed attempt to avoid the suicide, the second lorry crashed into the claimant causing catastrophic injuries. The . .
Cited – Regina v Mowatt CACD 20-Jun-1967
The defendant was attacked by his victim, and he hit his victim in the face. He was charged with wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm with an alternative of unlawful wounding also open to the jury. The judge gave no direction on the . .
Cited – Regina v Savage; Director of Public Prosecutions v Parmenter HL 7-Nov-1991
The first defendant had been convicted of wounding. She had intended to throw beer over her victim, but her glass slipped from her hand, and cut the victim. The second defendant threw his three year old child in the air and caught him, not realising . .
Cited – Regina v Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, Ex parte Clowes 1977
A police sergeant was injured by an explosion when he was investigating the suicide of a man who had broken off the end of a gas stand pipe in his house. The Board rejecting his application, saying that it had not been ‘a crime of violence’.
Cited – In re Grayan Building Services Ltd CA 1995
The degree to which an appellate court will be willing to substitute its own judgment for that of the tribunal will vary with the nature of the question. Hoffmann LJ said: ‘The concept of limited liability and the sophistication of our corporate law . .
Cited – Moyna v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 31-Jul-2003
The appellant had applied for and been refused disability living allowance on the basis of being able to carry out certain cooking tasks.
Held: The purpose of the ‘cooking test’ is not to ascertain whether the applicant can survive, or enjoy a . .
Cited – Brutus v Cozens HL 19-Jul-1972
The House was asked whether the conduct of the defendant at a tennis match at Wimbledon amounted to using ‘insulting words or behaviour’ whereby a breach of the peace was likely to be occasioned contrary to section 5. He went onto court 2, blew a . .

Cited by:
Cited – Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority v First-Tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) CA 3-Feb-2014
The claimant had been riding his cycle. A dog, known to be aggressive, chased him, he swerved ino the path of a car and was severely injured. His claim was rejected by the appellant saying that no crime of violence had been involved. CICA now . .
Cited – MM (Lebanon) and Others, Regina (on The Applications of) v Secretary of State and Another SC 22-Feb-2017
Challenge to rules requiring certain minimum levels of income (Minimum Income Requirement – MIR) for allowing entry for non-EEA spouse.
Held: The challenges udder the Human Rights Act to the Rules themselves failed. Nor did any separate issue . .
Cited – BPP Holdings Ltd and Others v Revenue and Customs SC 26-Jul-2017
The Revenue had challenged a decision by the FTTTx to bar it from defending an appeal as to VAT liability. It had failed first to meet procedural time limits and on the issue of an unless order had failed to comply. The Revenue challenged the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Personal Injury, Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.472625

Martin v Regina: CACD 6 Jul 2010

The defendant had been a passenger on a car driven by a learner driver. The car crashed killing the driver and seriously injuring another. He appealed against his conviction for aiding and abetting dangerous driving.
Held: The appeal succeeded. A serious contributory factor was an over inflation of a tyre of which the defendant could not have known, and nor could the jury have accepted that the driver had been racing, when he was driving under the speed limit. The recorder’s directions to the jury had been inadequate, and the court could not see how a jury properly directed on a retrial could safely convict the defendant. No retrial was ordered.

Hooper LJ, Gross, Moss QC JJ
[2010] EWCA Crim 1450, [2010] 1 Cr App R (S) 38
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Powell (Anthony) and Another; Regina v English HL 30-Oct-1997
When the court looked at the issue of foreseeability of murder in an allegation of joint enterprise, there was no requirement to show intent by the secondary party. The forseeability of the risk of the principal committing the offence from the point . .
Cited – Webster v Regina CACD 3-Mar-2006
The appellant challenged his conviction for aiding an abetting the causing of death by dangerous driving as a passenger. The driver had been drunk.
Held: The mere intoxication of the driver was not of itself and alone sufficient to establish . .

Cited by:
Cited – Adeojo and Another v Regina CACD 6-Feb-2013
The defendants appealed against their convictions for murder saying that the court should not have relied upon hearsay evidence. A witness had refused to give evidence, but his earlier evidnece was used.
Held: The appeals failed. The judge had . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Road Traffic

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.420235

X v United Kingdom: ECHR 1972

The defendant had been convicted of knowingly living on the earnings of prostitution contrary to section 30(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
Held: The Commission rejected as manifestly ill-founded the applicant’s challenge to this provision as incompatible with article 6(2). It created a rebuttable presumption which the defendant could disprove, and was not a presumption of guilt. A provision could, if widely or unreasonably worded, have the same effect as a presumption of guilt, and it was not sufficient to examine only the form in which it was drafted. The substance and effect must also be examined. In the present instance, the presumption was restrictively worded, and was neither irrebuttable nor unreasonable. To oblige the prosecution to obtain direct evidence of ‘living on immoral earnings’ would in most cases make its task impossible.
‘It is moreover the view of the Commission that Article 6.1 of the Convention cannot be so construed as to bar the Prosecution from formally discontinuing criminal proceedings or from simply dropping charges. This is in fact a daily practice in member states. It is in cases where the Prosecution has the intention of proceeding to a trial on an indictment that they are under an obligation to do so within a reasonable time. This is the very purpose of Article 6.1. . . . The Commission is of the opinion that, insofar as the present case is concerned, the undertaking made by the Prosecution on 29 March 1979 not to try the applicant on the three remaining charges on the F. indictment must be considered as being tantamount to saying that these charges have been effectively dropped. Consequently, the applicant thereby also ceased to be affected by the charges on the said indictment. Thus, as from that date, there are in fact no longer any charges against the applicant which require a determination within the meaning of Article 6.1 of the Convention.’

(1972) 42 CD 135, 5877/72
Sexual Offences Act 1956 30(1), European Convention on Human Rights 8(2)
Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – Sheldrake v Director of Public Prosecutions; Attorney General’s Reference No 4 of 2002 HL 14-Oct-2004
Appeals were brought complaining as to the apparent reversal of the burden of proof in road traffic cases and in cases under the Terrorism Acts. Was a legal or an evidential burden placed on a defendant?
Held: Lord Bingham of Cornhill said: . .
Cited – R, Regina (on the Application of) v Durham Constabulary and Another HL 17-Mar-2005
The appellant, a boy aged 15, had been warned as to admitted indecent assaults on girls. He complained that it had not been explained to him that the result would be that his name would be placed on the sex offenders register. The Chief Constable . .
Cited – Wood v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis Admn 22-May-2008
The claimant challenged the right of police officers to take his photograph as he attended an annual general meeting of Reed Elsevier Plc. He was a campaigner against the arms trade, but had always acted lawfully. The company noted the purchase of . .
Cited – Webster v Regina CACD 1-Dec-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction under the 1889 Act for making a corrupt gift to a local government officer. He said that the 1916 Act placed an unfair burden on him to prove that the gift was not corruptly given.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Catt and T, Regina (on The Applications of) v Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis SC 4-Mar-2015
Police Data Retention Justifiable
The appellants challenged the collection of data by the police, alleging that its retention interfered with their Article 8 rights. C complained of the retention of records of his lawful activities attending political demonstrations, and T . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Human Rights, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.218811

Rex v Bateman: CCA 1925

A doctor was convicted of manslaughter arising out of his treatment of a woman in childbirth. Lord Hewart CJ discussed the law governing manslaughter by negligence, which required, as the element distinguishing criminal from civil liability, proof of ‘gross negligence’, saying: ‘In expounding to juries on the trial of indictments for manslaughter by negligence, judge have often referred to the distinction between civil and criminal liability for death by negligence. The law of criminal liability for negligence is conveniently explained in that way. If A has caused the death of B by alleged negligence, then, in order to establish civil liability, the plaintiff must prove (in addition to pecuniary loss caused by death) that A owed a duty to B to take care, that that duty was not discharged, and that the default caused the death of B. To convict A of manslaughter, the prosecutor must prove the three things above mentioned and must satisfy the jury, in addition, that A’s negligence amounted to a crime. In the civil action if it is proved that A fell short of the standard of reasonable care required by law, it matters not how far he fell short of that standard. The extent of his liabiliity depends not on the degree of negligence, but on the amount of damage done. In a criminal Court, on the contrary, the amount and degree of negligence are the determining question. There must be mens rea.’ and
‘In explaining to juries the test which they should apply to determine whether the negligence, in the particular case, amounted or did not amount to a crime, judges have used many epithets, such as ‘culpable’, ‘criminal’, ‘gross’, ‘wicked’, ‘clear’, ‘complete’. But, whatever epithet be used and whether an epithet be used or not, in order to establish criminal liability the facts must be such that, in the opinion of the jury, the negligence of the accused went beyond a mere matter of compensation between subjects and showed such disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime against the State and conduct deserving punishment.’
‘The law as laid down in these cases may be thus summarised: If a person holds himself out as possessing special skill and knowledge and he is consulted, as possessing such skill and knowledge, by or on behalf of a patient, he owes a duty to the patient to use due caution in undertaking the treatment. If he accepts the responsibility and undertakes the treatment and the patient submits to his discretion and treatment accordingly, he owes a duty to the patient to use diligence, care, knowledge, skill and caution in administering the treatment. No contractual relation is necessary, nor is it necessary that the service be rendered for reward. It is for the judge to direct the jury what standard to apply and for the jury to say whether that standard has been reached. The jury should not exact the highest, or a very high, standard, nor should they be content with a very low standard. The law requires a fair and reasonable standard of care and competence be reached in all the matters above mentioned.’

Lord Hewart CJ
(1925) 19 Cr App R 8
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Brown v The Queen (Jamaica) PC 13-Apr-2005
A police officer appealed against his conviction for manslaughter after being involved in a road traffic accident. Two were killed. The policemen complained as to the direction given on gross negligence manslaughter.
Held: Adomako could not . .
Explained – Andrews v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 22-Apr-1937
The defendant was accused of manslaughter in a road traffic case.
Held: The House sought a simple definition of manslaughter which would be applicable for road traffic cases. Lord Atkin said: ‘My Lords, of all crimes manslaughter appears to . .
Approved – Regina v Shulman, Regina v Prentice, Regina v Adomako; Regina v Holloway HL 1-Jul-1994
An anaesthetist failed to observe an operation properly, and did not notice that a tube had become disconnected from a ventilator. The patient suffered a cardiac arrest and died, and the defendant was convicted of manslaughter, being guilty of gross . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.226128

Regina v Williams (Gladstone): CACD 28 Nov 1983

The defendant believed that the person whom he assaulted was unlawfully assaulting a third party. That person was a police officer, who said he was arresting the other, but did not show his warrant card.
Held: The court considered the issue of whether a defendant’s unreasonable belief could support a plea of self defence.
Held: Lord Lane CJ said: ‘The reasonableness or unreasonableness of the defendant’s belief is material to question of whether the belief was held by the defendant at all. If the belief was in fact held, its unreasonableness, so far as guilt or innocence is concerned, is neither here nor there. It is irrelevant. Were it otherwise, the defendant would be convicted because he was negligent in failing to recognise that the victim was not consenting . . and so on.’ and ‘Even if the jury come to the conclusion that the mistake was an unreasonable one, if the defendant may genuinely have been labouring under it, he is entitled to rely on it.’
Lord Lane CJ: ‘In a case of self-defence, where self-defence or the prevention of crime is concerned, if the jury come to the conclusion that the defendant believed, or may have believed, that he was being attacked or that a crime was being committed, and that force was necessary to protect himself or to prevent the crime, then the prosecution have not proved their case. If, however, the defendant’s alleged belief was mistaken and if the mistake was an unreasonable one, that may be a powerful reason for coming to the conclusion that the belief was not honestly held and should be rejected. Even if the jury come to the conclusion that the mistake was an unreasonable one, if the defendant may genuinely have been labouring under it, he is entitled to rely on it.’

Lord Lane CJ
(1983) 78 Cr App R 276, [1987] 3 All ER 411, [1983] EWCA Crim 4
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Applied – Beckford v The Queen PC 15-Jun-1987
(Jamaica) Self defence permits a defendant to use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances as he honestly believed them to be. ‘If then a genuine belief, albeit without reasonable grounds, is a defence to rape because it negatives the . .
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Armstrong-Braun Admn 5-Oct-1998
A building site was subject to a requirement to move great crested newts before work could proceed. The defendant, a local councillor interfered to prevent a digger destroying the land until the newts had been moved. He appealed his conviction for . .
Cited – Regina v O’Grady CACD 1987
The defendant and his associate drank substantial quantities of cider. They then fought and the defendant killed the associate. His defence was that he mistakenly thought his friend was attacking him. He appealed his conviction for manslaughter.
Cited – Regina v Hatton (Jonathan) CACD 26-Oct-2005
The defendant appealed his conviction for murder saying that his defence of having killed by virtue of a mistake which arose from his self-induced intoxication should have been allowed.
Held: The appeal failed. It had been argued that the . .
Cited – Ashley and Another v Sussex Police CA 27-Jul-2006
The deceased was shot by police officers raiding his flat in 1998. The claimants sought damages for his estate. They had succeeded in claiming damages for false imprisonment, but now appealed dismissal of their claim for damages for assault and . .
Cited – Ashley and Another v Chief Constable of Sussex Police HL 23-Apr-2008
The claimants sought to bring an action for damages after a family member suspected of dealing drugs, was shot by the police. At the time he was naked. The police officer had been acquitted by a criminal court of murder. The chief constable now . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.195978

Regina v R: HL 23 Oct 1991

H has no right to sexual intercourse with W – rape

The defendant appealed against his conviction for having raped his wife, saying that intercourse with his wife was necessarily lawful, and therefore outside the statutory definition of rape. Due to the matrimonial difficulties, the wife had left their matrimonial house and gone to her parents with the son. When she was there with her parents, the defendant had forced his way in and attempted to have sexual intercourse with her. The assault had taken place during the cause of the said attempt.
Held: The appeal failed. A husband could be prosecuted for raping his wife. In the definition of the offence of rape, the word ‘unlawful’ in describing intercourse no longer added any meaning and should be disregarded.
Lord Keith of Kinkel observed that: ‘husband and wife are now for all practical purposes equal partners in marriage.’ and ‘. . in modern times the supposed marital exemption in rape forms no part of the Law of England’

Lord Keith of Kinkel, Lord Brandon Of Oakbrook, Lord Griffiths, Lord Ackner And Lord Lowry
[1991] 4 All ER 481, [1992] 1 AC 599, [1990] UKHL 9, [1991] UKHL 12, [1991] UKHL 14, (1992) 94 Cr App R 216, (1991) 155 JPN 752, [1992] 1 FLR 217, [1991] 3 WLR 767, (1991) 155 JP 989, [1992] Crim LR 207, [1992] Fam Law 108
Hamlyn, Bailii, Bailii, Bailii
Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976 1(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Followed – S v HM Advocate HCJ 1989
Rape is regarded as an aggravated assault, of which the achievement of sexual intercourse is the worst aggravating feature. . .
Clarified – Regina v Clarence CCCR 20-Nov-1888
The defendant knew that he had gonorrhea. He had intercourse with his wife, and infected her. She would not have consented had she known. He appealed his convictions for assault and causing grievous bodily harm.
Held: ‘The question in this . .
Appeal from – Regina v R CACD 14-Mar-1991
The appellant challenged his conviction for charges of attempted rape and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on his then wife to which he had pleaded guilty after the trial judge ruled that he could be convicted of rape on his wife.
Held: . .
Cited – Regina v C (rape: marital exemption), Crwn 1991
(Crown Ct at Sheffield) There were nine counts in an indictment against a husband and a co-accused charging various offences of a sexual nature against an estranged wife. One of these was of rape as a principal.
Held: The whole concept of a . .
Cited – Regina v J (rape: marital exemption) Crwn 1991
(Crown Ct at Teesside) A husband was charged with having raped his wife, from whom he was living apart at the time.
Held: The charge was bad. s 1(1)(a) of the 1976 Act had the effect that the marital exemption embodied in Hale’s proposition . .
Cited – Regina v Chapman CCA 1958
The court accepted that the word `unlawfully’ in relation to carnal knowledge had in many early statutes not been used with any degree of precision, and he referred to a number of enactments making it a felony unlawfully and carnally to know any . .
Cited – Regina v Jackson CA 1891
A husband had no right to confine his wife in order to enforce a decree for restitution of conjugal rights. . .
Cited – Rex v Clarke 1949
The defendant was accused of the rape of his wife and assault. At the time they were separated by virtue of a court order recently obtained by her. He replied that the offence alleged was not known to law because of the marriage.
Held: The . .
Cited – Regina v Miller Assz 1954
A husband was charged with rape of his wife after she had left him and petitioned for divorce. He was also charged with an assault.
Held: There was no evidence which entitled the court to say that the wife’s implied consent to marital . .
Cited – Regina v O’Brien Crwn 1974
(Crown Court, Bristol) A decree nisi effectively terminated a marriage and revoked the wife’s implied consent to marital intercourse, so that subsequent intercourse by the husband without her consent constituted rape. . .
Cited – Regina v Steele CACD 1976
The parties to the marriage were living apart, and the wife had taken the husband to court for domestic violence, and the court had accepted his undertaking not further to molest her. He later had intercourse with her and appealed against his . .
Cited – Regina v Caswell Crwn 1984
Crown Court at Wakefield . .
Cited – Regina v Sharples Crwn 1990
(Crown Court at Manchester) The defendant could not be convicted of rape upon his wife despite there being a family protection order in her favour and he had had sexual intercourse with her against her will. . .
Cited – Regina v Kowalski CACD 1987
. .
Cited – Regina v Roberts CACD 1986
The parties to the marriage were living separately under a deed of separation. The husband appealed a conviction for rape.
Held: The deed was enough to establish that the husband could not rely upon any implied consent by his wife as a . .
Cited – HM Advocate v Paxton HCJ 1984
. .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Crooks CACD 18-Mar-2004
The defendant appealed against a conviction in 2002 for the rape of his wife in 1970. He said that at the time that was not an offence.
Held: The words which at one point appeared to make rape of a wife lawful were a mere technicality. The . .
Cited – SW v The United Kingdom; CR v United Kingdom ECHR 22-Nov-1995
Criminal Law Change not retrospective
The law that marital rape was an offence, was not to be treated as retrospective despite being a common law change. The Court rejected complaints by two applicants who had been found guilty of raping their wives which was an undoubted extension of . .
Appealed to – Regina v R CACD 14-Mar-1991
The appellant challenged his conviction for charges of attempted rape and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on his then wife to which he had pleaded guilty after the trial judge ruled that he could be convicted of rape on his wife.
Held: . .
Cited – Regina v Dica CACD 5-May-2004
Reckless HIV transmission – Grievous Bodily Harm
The defendant appealed against his conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm. He had HIV/Aids, and was found to have transmitted the disease by intercourse when the victims were not informed of his condition. It was not suggested that any rape . .
Mentioned – Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane HL 24-May-2006
Fairness on Division of Family Capital
The House faced the question of how to achieve fairness in the division of property following a divorce. In the one case there were substantial assets but a short marriage, and in the other a high income, but low capital.
Held: The 1973 Act . .
Cited – Tchenguiz and Others v Imerman CA 29-Jul-2010
Anticipating a refusal by H to disclose assets in ancillary relief proceedings, W’s brothers wrongfully accessed H’s computers to gather information. The court was asked whether the rule in Hildebrand remained correct. W appealed against an order . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Family

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.194880

Dhall v Regina: CACD 27 Sep 2013

The appellant said that his conviction for assisting breaches of immigration law in his work as an immigration adviser by creating false documentation to support clients’ applications for extensions of leave to stay was not itself an allegation of facilitating breaches of ‘immigration law’, but rather of more general criminal offences.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. The allegation was one of a breach of immigration law: ‘when this appellant submitted the false documents to the United Kingdom Border Agency, he did an act which facilitated the commission of a breach of immigration law by those individuals who were not citizens of the European Union and whose applications for an extension of leave, in due course, were granted. ‘
THe Court, having reviewed the authorities, established three propositions: ‘(1) A conspiracy requires that the parties to it have a common unlawful purpose or design.
(2) A common design means a shared design. It is not the same as a similar but separate design.
(3) In criminal law (as in civil law) there may be an umbrella agreement pursuant to which the parties enter into further agreements . .’

Fulford LJ, Cox, Slade JJ
[2013] EWCA Crim 1610
Bailii
Immigration Act 1971 25(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Bhatti and Others v Regina CACD 30-Jul-2015
The defendants appealed against their convictions for conspiracy to facilitate breaches of immigration law, saying that they had been based on evidence obtained by the police from credit reference agencies in breach of their rights under the 1984 . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Immigration

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.516021

Chahal v Director of Public Prosecutions: Admn 24 Feb 2010

The defendant appealed against his conviction for possession of a bladed article. He had used the knife at work and forgotten to leave it at work and had it in his pocket by accident.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The defendant had been accepted as a truthful witness, and ‘In my judgment that is a broad factual test for the tribunal of fact, providing it bears in mind that forgetfulness, without some other good reason to support it, will not, of itself, entitle the accused to the benefit of the defence. The defendant needs to go further and demonstrate what the reason was for the knife being where it was.’ and ‘the justices here appear to have been misled into thinking that the casual nature of the appellant’s work deprived him of good reason without more, when the real question was whether the appellant had genuinely had a good reason for having the knife, and had then genuinely forgotten about it; and that in so far as he had the article with him when recollection was restored he still had a good reason for having it with him.’

Laws LJ, McCombe J
[2010] EWHC 439 (Admin), [2010] 2 Cr App R 5, [2010] ACD 42
Bailii
Criminal Justice Act 1988 139
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Gregson QBD 23-Sep-1992
A knife fell from the defendant’s jeans during the course of a police search. He claimed to have forgotten about it.
Held: It is important to concentrate on the time in respect of which the defendant is charged. Six days earlier he had the . .
Cited – Regina v Manning CACD 22-Oct-1997
The defendant had been in possession of a knife which he said that he had used to fix his car radiator and then put in his pocket. As to the statutory defence the trial judge had directed the jury that ‘just forgetfulness on its own was no reason.’ . .
Cited – Regina v Bown (Mark) CACD 23-Jun-2003
The defendant was charged with having in his possession a locked blade. His defence was that he had good reason, relying upon the explanation given at the police station. The judge withdrew the defence from the jury. He appealed, saying the judge . .
Cited – Jolie v Regina CACD 23-May-2003
The appellant had been convicted of having a pointed article with him in a public place. He said that the car he was driving had needed an instrument to operate the lock. At first he had used a knife, but then used scissors, losing the knife in the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.406629

Regina v Tyrrell: 1894

r_tyrrell1894

The court considered whether a girl between the ages of 13 and 16 could be convicted of aiding and abetting a male who had had unlawful sexual intercourse with her.
Held: A person for whose protection an offence has been created cannot be convicted of aiding and abetting a person who commits the offence against her. Parliament could not have intended that a statute passed to protect girls also made girls punishable under it.

[1894] 1 QB 710
Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 5
Cited by:
Cited – Gnango, Regina v SC 14-Dec-2011
The prosecutor appealed against a successful appeal by the defendant against his conviction for murder. He and an opponent had engaged in a street battle using guns. His opponent had shot an innocent passer by. The court was now asked as to whether . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.196595

Haughton v Smith, On Appeal From Regina v Smith (Roger): HL 21 Nov 1973

The defendant appealed against his conviction for attempting to handle stolen goods. They were to be delivered to him in a van, but the meat was intercepted and recovered by the police. The defendant argued that he should not be convicted of attempting the impossible, since the goods were no longer stolen, having returned to lawful custody. The Court of appeal had allowed his appeal.
Held: The prosecutor’s appeal failed. For section 22 the goods had to be, or remain, stolen at the time of the attempted handling. It was not open to the prosecution to change a complete, but failed, charge of handling into an offence, by calling it an attempted handling. Acts on the way to commission of some act which if completed would not be an offence could not themselves be an offence.
Lord Hailsham defined what was meant by ‘actus reus’: ‘it derives, I believe, from a mistranslation of the latin aphorism: ‘Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’. Properly translated, this means ‘An act does not make a man guilty of a crime, unless his mind be also guilty’. It is thus not the actus which is ‘reus’, but the man and his mind respectively.’
The court derived three propositions: ‘1) There is a distinction between the intention to commit a crime and an attempt to commit it. Thus, in this case, the respondent intended to commit a crime under s.22 of the Theft Act. But this dishonest intention does not amount to an attempt. This distinction has not always been observed in the discussion of cases on the law affecting attempts.
2) In addition to the intention, or mens rea, there must be an overt act of such a kind that it is intended to form and does form part of a series of acts which would constitute the actual commission of the offence if it were not interrupted. In the present case the series of acts would never have constituted and in fact did not constitute an actual commission of the offence, because at the time of the handling the goods were no longer stolen goods.
3) The act relied on as constituting the attempt must not be an act merely preparatory to commit the completed offence, but must bear a relationship to the completion of the offence referred to in Eagleton as being ‘ proximate ‘ to the completion of the offence and in Davey v. Lee as being ‘ immediately and not merely remotely connected’ with the completed offence. I do not think that the present case turns on the test.’
Lord Reid said: ‘It has often been said that to constitute an attempt the act must be proximate to and not remote from the crime itself . . It must be left to common sense to determine in each case whether the accused has gone beyond mere preparation’

Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone LC, Lord Reid, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, Viscount Dilhorne and Lord Salmon
[1974] 2 WLR 1, [1973] 3 All ER 1109 HL(E), [1975] AC 476, [1973] UKHL 4
lip, Bailii
Theft Act 1968 22(1) 24(3)
England and Wales
Citing:
Approved – Rex v Percy Dalton (London) Ltd CCA 1949
Birkett J said: ‘Steps on the way to the commission of what would be a crime, if the acts were completed, may amount to attempts to commit that crime, to which, unless interrupted, they would have led ; but steps on the way to the doing of . .
Applied – Regina v Donnelly 1970
(New Zealand) . .
Disapproved – Regina v Miller CCA 1965
. .
Disapproved – Regina v Curbishley 1970
. .
Cited – Regina v Eagleton 1855
Parke B defined what constituted an attempt in criminal law: ‘The mere intention to commit a misdemeanour is not criminal. Some act is required, and we do not think that all acts towards committing a misdemeanour are indictable. Acts remotely . .
Appeal from – Houghton v Smith CACD 1973
The defendant appealed his conviction for attempting to handle stolen goods, saying that that the time of his act, the goods were no longer stolen, having been taken into lawful custody by the police.
Held: The appeal failed. Lord Widgery CJ . .
Cited – Davey v Lee 1968
Lord Parker CJ defined ‘attempt’ in criminal law: ‘What amounts to an attempt has been described variously in the authorities, and for my part I prefer to adopt the definition given in Stephen’s Digest of the Criminal Law, 5th Ed. (1894) art. 50, . .
Preferred – Donnelly v Jackman 1970
Turner J considered the law of attempt: ‘He who sets out to commit a crime may in the event fall short of the complete commission of that crime for any one of a number of reasons. First, he may, of course, simply change his mind before committing . .
Cited – Regina v M’Pherson 1857
The accused was charged with breaking and entering a dwelling house and stealing certain goods therein. At the time of the breaking and entering the goods were not in the house. He was acquitted of the felony but convicted of breaking and entering . .
Cited – Regina v Hensler 1870
The accused attempted to obtain money by false pretences by sending a letter. The recipient was not deceived.
Held: An attempt to obtain money by a false pretence which is not in fact believed, is criminal notwithstanding that the consequences . .
Cited – Rex v Goodchild 1846
The defendant was accused of administering a noxious thing with intent to procure a miscarriage.
Held: It was no defence that the woman to whom the noxious thing was administered was not with child. . .
Cited – Regina v Villensky 1892
The prisoners could not be indicted for receiving stolen goods where the goods were no longer stolen when received. . .
Cited – Regina v Collins 1864
The court considered the case of an attempt where the defendant had put his hand in another’s pocket, but the pocket was empty. The fact that the victim’s pocket was empty prevented the actor from being guilty of an attempt to pick it.
Cockburn . .
Cited – Regina v Ring 1892
The defendant was accused of a mugging offence on the Metropolitan Railway. . .
Cited – Regina v Williams 1893
A boy below the age at which he could be properly indicted for rape could not be convicted, on the same facts, for an attempt. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Shivpuri HL 15-May-1986
The defendant had been accused of attempting to import controlled drugs, but the substances actually found were not in fact a controlled drug, though he had believed and intended them to be. He appealed saying that he should not be conviced of an . .
Considered – Anderton v Ryan HL 9-May-1985
The defendant was found in possession of a video recorder. She refused to name the source, but admitted that she believed it to be stolen. After it became clear that there was no evidence that it was in fact stolen, she was convicted of attempting . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.174756

Regina v Denton: CACD 1987

Necessity not a defence to reckless driving

The trial judge had refused to leave to the jury the defence of necessity, which the appellant sought to bring to a road traffic allegation.
Held: The appeal failed. Caulfield J referred to the authorities, and said: ‘In view of our ultimate decision it is not necessary to review, still less to comment, on the law of this alleged defence of necessity. This is so because this court takes the view that even if necessity as a defence can be raised in a charge of reckless driving, it certainly could not be raised on the facts relied upon by the appellant in his defence. The appellant did not assert that he had to take risks of causing harm to others to escape from his pursuers or that he had to drive recklessly or that he did not give the nature of his driving a thought. He asserted in terms: ‘I did not take risks, I drove carefully throughout.’ In our view, such assertions exclude any possible defence of necessity, even assuming there is such a defence. The necessity if any, was to drive, not to drive recklessly.’
As to Willer, the court said: ‘This authority might be taken to suggest that the court assumed that on the facts of the case the defence of necessity could have been raised to a charge of reckless driving. We do not think this authority goes so far. We think it shows that the court doubted whether necessity as a defence could have been raised on the facts of that case but the court saw no need to decide whether such a defence existed as a matter of law. The court said a very different defence was available, which was duress, which should have been left to the jury It should be observed that where the headnote says, at p. 225. ‘Further the judge erred in ruling that the defence of necessity was not available to the defendant’ it is referring to the argument advanced by the appellant and not to the decision of the appellate court.’

Caulfield J
(1987) Cr App R 246
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Willer (Mark Edward) CACD 1986
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving (absolute discharge and ten penalty points). He drove his car slowly on the pavement in front of a shopping precinct. He said that this had seemed to him to be the only way in which . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Conway CACD 28-Jul-1988
The defendant appealed against his conviction for reckless driving. He said the offence was committed out of necessity, since his passenger’s life was under threat.
Held: Necessity can only be a defence to a charge of reckless driving where . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Road Traffic, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.470727

Rex v Huggins and Barnes: KBD 1730

Gaoler – Murder of Prisoner by Lack of Care

The defendant Huggins was warden of the Fleet Prison. A prisoner, Arne, died in 1725. Barnes, a gaoler had put him in a room ‘without fire, chamber-pot or close-stool, the walls being damp and unwholesome, and the room built over the common sewer’. Thus confined, Arne ‘by reason of his imprisonment in the said room sickened, and by duress thereof died’ 44 days later. Huggins was indicted and tried at the Old Bailey for his murder, under an allegation that as warden of the Fleet he ‘had the care and custody of the prisoners committed thither’, that ‘Barnes was his servant, employed by him in taking care of the prisoners’, that at the time of Arne’s imprisonment Barnes and Huggins knew the room to be as before described and that Huggins was ‘aiding and abetting Barnes in committing the said felony and murder.’ The jury had returned a special verdict finding that Barnes was in fact the servant of Huggins’ deputy, Gibbon, and that Huggins had visited the cell only once, some 15 days before Arne died.
Held: In a certiorari in the Kings Bench, the judges concluded that Barnes, if indicted, would, on the facts as found by the jury, have been guilty of murder, but that Huggins was not guilty.
Lord Raymond LCJ said: ‘Though he was warden, yet it being found, that there was a deputy; he is not, as warden, guilty of the facts committed under the authority of his deputy. He shall answer as superior for his deputy civilly, but not criminally. It has been settled, that though a sheriff must answer for the offences of his gaoler civilly, that is, he is subject in an action, to make satisfaction to the party injured; yet he is not to answer criminally for the offences of his under-officer. He only is criminally punishable, who immediately does the act, or permits it to be done. Hale’s P. C. 114. So that if an act be done by an under-officer, unless it is done by the command or direction, or with the consent of the principal, the principal is not criminally punishable for it. In this case the fact was done by Barnes; and it no where appears in the special verdict, that the prisoner at the Bar ever commanded, or directed, or consented to this duress of imprisonment, which was the cause of Arne’s death.’
In Strange’s report: ‘It is a point not to be disputed, but that in criminal cases the principal is not answerable for the act of the deputy, as he is in civil cases: they must each answer for their own acts, and stand or fall by their own behaviour. All the authors that treat of criminal proceedings, proceed on the foundation of this distinction; that to affect the superior by the act of the deputy, there must be the command of the superior, which is not found in this case.’
Fitz-Gibbons reported: ‘The act of the deputy cannot criminally affect the principal; so that unless the act be by command, consent, or privity of the principal, so as to make him an abettor, he cannot be guilty.’

Lord Raymond LCJ, Lord Chief Justice
(1730) 2 Str 883, (1730) 2 Ld Raym 1574, (1730) Fitz 177
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Craik, Chief Constable of Northumbria Police, Regina (on The Application of) v Newcastle Upon Tyne Magistrates’ Court Admn 30-Apr-2010
The claimant a retired Chief Constable sought judicial review of a decision to commit him for trial on a charge of unlawful imprisonment. The suspect and now prosecutor had been arrested and held in custody, but without the necessary timely review . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Prisons, Crime, Vicarious Liability

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.408854

Lim Chin Aik v The Queen: PC 29 Nov 1962

Displaced Presumption Against Absolute Liability

In considering how the presumption against an absolute offence having been created, can be displaced ‘it is not enough in their Lordships’ opinions merely to label the statute as one dealing with a grave social evil and from that to infer that strict liability was intended. It is pertinent also to inquire whether putting the defendant under strict liability will assist in the enforcement of the regulations. That means that there must be something he can do, directly or indirectly, by supervision or inspection, by improvement of his business methods or by exhorting those whom he may be expected to influence or control, which will promote the observance of the regulations. Unless this is so, there is no reason in penalising him, and it cannot be inferred that the legislature imposed strict liability merely in order to find a luckless victim.’

Lord Evershed
[1963] AC 160, [1962] UKPC 34, [1963] 1 All ER 223, [1963] 2 WLR 42
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 23-Feb-2000
Prosecution to prove absence of genuine belief
To convict a defendant under the 1960 Act, the prosecution had the burden of proving the absence of a genuine belief in the defendant’s mind that the victim was 14 or over. The Act itself said nothing about any mental element, so the assumption must . .
Cited – Sweet v Parsley HL 23-Jan-1969
Mens Rea essential element of statutory Offence
The appellant had been convicted under the Act 1965 of having been concerned in the management of premises used for smoking cannabis. This was a farmhouse which she visited infrequently. The prosecutor had conceded that she was unaware that the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.195984

A and Others v Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken: ECJ 14 Mar 2017

Account freezing was act of State, not EU

ECJ (Area of Freedom, Security and Justice Area of Freedom, Security and Justice External Relations : Common Foreign and Security Policy Fundamental Rights : Charter of Fundamental Rights – Judgment)Reference for a preliminary ruling – Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) – Specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism – Common Position 2001/931/CFSP – Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA – Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 – Article 2(3) – Inclusion of the ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)’ on the list of persons, groups and entities involved in terrorist acts – Question referred for a preliminary ruling concerning the validity of that inclusion – Compliance with international humanitarian law – Concept of ‘terrorist act’ – Actions by armed forces during periods of armed conflict

K. Lenaerts, P
ECLI:EU:C:2017:202, [2017] EUECJ C-158/14, [2017] WLR(D) 180
Bailii, WLRD
European

Human Rights, Crime, Banking

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.580690

Sibartie, Regina v: CACD 21 Apr 1983

The defendant appealed against his conviction for a dishonest attempt to avoid payment. He had made regular trips on the London underground, and had purchased two weekly season tickets, one for each end of his journey, but not in respect of the middle part. He now argued that the judge had incorrectly interpreted sub-paragraph (c). He said that subsection (c) dealt with a potential liability, or alternatively, a liability created at the time of the fraud, and does not extend to the type of situation of the case.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘the traveller on the underground is saying, albeit tacitly by waving the season tickets in the air, ‘I am the holder of a ticket which authorises me to be making this journey without further payment. Consequently I am not under any liability to pay any more.’ In the ordinary meaning of the words it seems to us that that is dishonestly obtaining, or attempting to obtain, an exemption from the liability to pay the excess fare which, if he had been honest, he would have had to pay. As we say, the fact that it may also have been an attempt to commit an offence under subsection (b) is neither here nor there. Consequently, upon those grounds, in our judgment, the learned Judge was right not to stop the case, as Mr. Blair-Gould submitted he should have, at the end of the prosecution case, and also in his direction to the jury which it is not necessary for us to read.’

Lord Lane LCJ, McCowan, Nolan JJ
[1983] EWCA Crim 3, [1983] Crim LR 470
Bailii
Theft Act 1978 2(1)(c)
England and Wales

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.247948

Attorney General’s Reference (No 3 of 2003): CACD 7 Apr 2004

Police Officers had been acquitted of misconduct in public office. They had stood by in a police station custody suite as a prisoner lay on the floor and died.
Held: The trial took place before R -v- G which had overruled Caldwell. The standard of recklessness to be show was that laid down in Cunningham. For the offence of misconduct in public office, the defendant must be a public officer acting as such, there must be a breach of duty by the officer. It may consist of an act of commission or one of omission. The conduct must be wilful: ‘There must be an awareness of the duty to act or a subjective recklessness as to the existence of the duties. The recklessness test will apply to the question whether in particular circumstances a duty arises at all as well as to the conduct of the defendant if it does. The subjective test applies both to reckless indifference to the legality of the act or omission and in relation to the consequences of the act or omission’. The element of culpability ‘must be of such a degree that the misconduct impugned is calculated to injure the public interest so as to call for condemnation and punishment.’ The action should have been without reasonable excuse or justification.
In future, in similar cases a charge of misconduct in public office should not be routinely added.
The court declined to define a public officer, however, but said: ‘This potential unfairness adds weight, in our view, to the conclusion that the offence should be strictly confined but we do not propose to develop the point or to consider further the question of what, for present purposes, constitutes a public office.’

Mr Justice Hughes, Lord Justice Pill, Justice Aikens
Times 22-Apr-2004, [2004] EWCA Crim 868, [2005] QB 73, [2004] 2 Cr App Rep 23, [2004] 3 WLR 451, [2005] 4 All ER 303
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Commissioner of Police v Caldwell HL 19-Mar-1981
The defendant got drunk and set fire to the hotel where he worked. Guests were present. He was indicted upon two counts of arson. He pleaded guilty to the 1(1) count but contested the 1(2) charge, saying he was so drunk that the thought there might . .
Cited – Regina v G and R HL 16-Oct-2003
The defendants, young boys, had set fire to paper and thrown the lit papers into a wheelie bin, expecting the fire to go out. In fact substantial damage was caused. The House was asked whether a conviction was proper under the section where the . .
Cited – Regina v Dytham CACD 1979
A constable was 30 yards away from the entrance to a club, from which he saw a man ejected. There was a fight involving cries and screams and the man was beaten and kicked to death in the gutter outside the club. The constable made no move to . .
Cited – Regina v Sheppard HL 1981
The section made it an offence for anyone having care of a child to wilfully neglect the child ‘in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.
Held: The section speaks of an act or omission that is ‘likely’ to . .
Cited – Regina v Bowden (T) CACD 24-Feb-1995
The defendant, a maintenance manager, was accused of misconduct in public office. He had caused works to be carried out by other employees of the local authority on premises occupied by a friend when such works were not required under the . .
Cited – Regina v Cunningham CCA 1957
Specific Intention as to Damage Caused
(Court of Criminal Appeal) The defendant wrenched a gas meter from the wall to steal it. Gas escaped. He was charged with unlawfully and maliciously causing a noxious thing, namely coal gas, to be taken by the victim.
Held: Byrne J said: ‘We . .
Cited – Crouther’s case 1599
A constable was indicted for refusing to make a hue and cry after notice of a burglary committed in the night. . .
Cited – Rex v Wyat 1705
Where an officer [a constable] neglects a duty incumbent upon him, either by common law or statute, he is for his default indictable. . .
Cited – Rex v Bembridge 1783
The defendant was an accountant in the office and place of receiver and paymaster general. The court was asked whether he held a public office.
Held: A man who holds a public office is answerable criminally to the king for misbehaviour in that . .
Cited – Rex v Borron 1820
A criminal information was applied for against a magistrate.
Abbott CJ said: ‘They [magistrates] are indeed, like every other subject of this kingdom, answerable to the law for the faithful and upright discharge of their trust and duties. But, . .
Cited – Regina v Llewellyn-Jones CACD 1968
The Registrar of a County Court was convicted of offences of misconduct in public office. The indictment charged ‘misbehaviour in a public office, contrary to common law’ and alleged that court orders had been made ‘with the intention of gaining . .
Cited – Lloyd v McMahon HL 12-Mar-1987
The district auditor had issued a certificate under the 1982 Act surcharging the appellant councillors in the sum of 106,103, pounds being the amount of a loss incurred or deficiency caused, as the auditor found, by their wilful misconduct.
Cited – Graham v Teesdale and Another 1981
The case concerned the audit of local authority accounts by a district auditor. The court considered the meaning of ‘wilful misconduct’ within the section.
Held: Wilful misconduct means ‘deliberately doing something which is wrong knowing it . .
Cited – Three Rivers District Council and Others v Governor and Company of The Bank of England HL 18-May-2000
The applicants alleged misfeasance against the Bank of England in respect of the regulation of a bank.
Held: The Bank could not be sued in negligence, but the tort of misfeasance required clear evidence of misdeeds. The action was now properly . .

Cited by:
Cited – Attorney General’s Reference (Number 8 of 2004) (Dawson and Others) CANI 15-Apr-2005
Defendants had been convicted of offences involving supply of cannabis and cocaine, including the evasion of import controls and conspiracy. The sentences were appealed as too lenient.
Held: Where a prosecutor was aware that a plea of guilty . .
Cited – Watkins v Home Office and others HL 29-Mar-2006
The claimant complained of misfeasance in public office by the prisons for having opened and read protected correspondence whilst he was in prison. The respondent argued that he had suffered no loss. The judge had found that bad faith was . .
Cited – Regina v W CACD 2-Mar-2010
The defendant appealed against his conviction for misconduct in public office. As a police officer he had used an official credit card to pay for personal items. He said that he believed this was allowed where he intended to discharge the debt. He . .
Cited – ABC and Others, Regina v CACD 26-Mar-2015
Several defendants sought to appeal against convictions. They were public officials accused of having committed misconduct in public office in the sale of information relating to their work to journalists. The journalists were convicted of . .
Cited – Monica, Regina (on The Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 14-Dec-2018
Deception as to identity did not undermine consent
The claimant had been an environmental campaigner. She had had a sexual relationship with a man who was unknown to her an undercover police officer. She now challenged the decision not to prosecute him for rape.
Held: Her claim failed. Case . .
Cited – Ball v Johnson 29-May-2019
Summons granted for political lies allegation
(Westminster Magistrates Court) The court gave its reasons for acceding to a request for the issue of a summons requiring the defendant to answer a charge for three offences alleging misconduct in a public office.
Held: There was prima facie . .
Cited – Johnson v Westminster Magistrates’ Court Admn 3-Jul-2019
Public Office Misconduct – Acting As not While
The claimant sought judicial review of a decision to issue a summons against him alleging three offences of misconduct in public office. He was said to have issue misleading statements in support of the campaign leading up to the Referendum on . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.195493

Pretty v The United Kingdom: ECHR 29 Apr 2002

Right to Life Did Not include Right to Death

The applicant was paralysed and suffered a degenerative condition. She wanted her husband to be allowed to assist her suicide by accompanying her to Switzerland. English law would not excuse such behaviour. She argued that the right to die is not the antithesis of the right to life but the corollary of it, and the state has a positive obligation to protect both.
Held: The article reflected the sanctity of life, and cannot be interpreted as including a right to die. Some Convention rights have been interpreted to confer rights not to do that which is the antithesis of what there is an express right to do, but there was not a right not to experience the opposite of what the articles guarantee for articles 3, 4, 5 and 6. It was an impermissible step to proceed to the assertion that the state has a duty to recognise a right to be assisted to take one’s own life. The prohibition of assisted suicide is inconsistent with the Convention. ‘[Article 3] may be described in general terms as imposing a primary negative obligation on States to refrain from inflicting serious harm upon persons within their jurisdiction.’
‘As the court has had previous occasion to remark, the concept of ‘private life’ is a broad term not susceptible to exhaustive definition. It covers the physical and psychological integrity of a person . . It can sometimes embrace aspects of an individual’s physical and social identity . . Elements such as, for example, gender identification, name and sexual orientation and sexual life fall within the personal sphere protected by article 8 . . Article 8 also protects a right to personal development, and the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings and the outside world . . Though no previous case has established as such any right to self-determination as being contained in article 8 of the Convention, the court considers that the notion of personal autonomy is an important principle underlying the interpretation of its guarantees.’
‘The court would observe that the ability to conduct one’s life in a manner of one’s own choosing may also include the opportunity to pursue activities perceived to be of a physically or morally harmful or dangerous nature for the individual concerned.’

M Pellonpaa P
2346/02, (2002) 35 EHRR 1, [2002] ECHR 427, (2002) 66 BMLR 147, 12 BHRC 149, [2002] Fam Law 588, [2002] 2 FCR 97, [2002] All ER (D) 286 (Apr), [2002] 2 FLR 45
Worldlii, Bailii
European Convention on Human Rights 2 3 8 9 14, Suicide Act 1961 2(1)
Human Rights
Citing:
Cited – Osman v The United Kingdom ECHR 28-Oct-1998
Police’s Complete Immunity was Too Wide
(Grand Chamber) A male teacher developed an obsession with a male pupil. He changed his name by deed poll to the pupil’s surname. He was required to teach at another school. The pupil’s family’s property was subjected to numerous acts of vandalism, . .
Cited – Airedale NHS Trust v Bland HL 4-Feb-1993
Procedures on Withdrawal of Life Support Treatment
The patient had been severely injured in the Hillsborough disaster, and had come to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). The doctors sought permission to withdraw medical treatment. The Official Solicitor appealed against an order of the Court . .
At HL – Regina (on the Application of Pretty) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 29-Nov-2001
The applicant was terminally ill, and entirely dependent upon her husband for care. She foresaw a time when she would wish to take her own life, but would not be able to do so without the active assistance of her husband. She sought a proleptic . .

Cited by:
Cited – Regina (on the Application of Q and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 18-Mar-2003
The Home Secretary appealed a ruling that his implementation of section 55 was unlawful, having been said to be incompatible with human rights law.
Held: The way in which the section had been operated, by denying consideration and all benefits . .
Cited – Munjaz v Mersey Care National Health Service Trust And the Secretary of State for Health, the National Association for Mental Health (Mind) Respondent interested; CA 16-Jul-2003
The claimant was a mental patient under compulsory detention, and complained that he had been subjected to periods of seclusion.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The hospital had failed to follow the appropriate Code of Practice. The Code was not . .
Applied – Regina (T) v the Secretary of State for the Home Department; similar CA 23-Sep-2003
The claimant asylum seeker had been refused benefits having failed to declare his application on entry. The Secretary now appealed a finding that the decision was flawed. Was the treatment of the applicant inhuman or degrading?
Held: No simple . .
Cited – PS, Regina (on the Application of) v Responsible Medical Officer, Dr G and others Admn 10-Oct-2003
The claimant had been compulsorily detained under the Act. He complained that the detention and compulsory medication infringed his rights, and amongst other things breached his religious beliefs.
Held: This was an exceptional case requiring . .
Cited – Anufrijeva and Another v London Borough of Southwark CA 16-Oct-2003
The various claimants sought damages for established breaches of their human rights involving breaches of statutory duty by way of maladministration. Does the state have a duty to provide support so as to avoid a threat to the family life of the . .
Cited – Zehnalova and Zehnal v Czech Republic ECHR 14-May-2002
The applicants were husband and wife and the wife was physically handicapped. They complained that their Article 8 rights were infringed because, in breach of Czech law, the authorities had failed to install facilities that would enable her to gain . .
Cited – N v the Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 16-Oct-2003
The applicant entered the UK illegally. She was unwell and was given treatment. She resisted removal on the grounds that the treatment available to her would be of such a quality as to leave her life threatened.
Held: D -v- UK should be . .
Cited – Regina (Limbuela) v Secretary of State for the Home Department QBD 4-Feb-2004
The claimant had sought asylum on the day after arrival, and had therefore been refused any assistance beyond the provision of a list of charities who might assist. His lawyers were unable to secure either shelter or maintenance, and he had been . .
Cited – Glass v The United Kingdom ECHR 9-Mar-2004
The applicant’s adult son was disabled. There was a disagreement with the hospital about his care. The hospital considered that to alleviate his distress, he should not be resuscitated. The family wanted to take him home, fearing euthanasia. The . .
Cited – Evans v Amicus Healthcare Ltd and others CA 25-Jun-2004
The applicant challenged the decision of the court that the sperm donor who had fertilised her eggs to create embryos stored by the respondent IVF clinic, could withdraw his consent to their continued storage or use.
Held: The judge worked . .
Cited – Regina (Burke) v General Medical Council Admn 30-Jul-2004
The applicant, suffering a life threatening disease, wanted to ensure his continued treatment and revival in the circumstance of losing his own capacity. He said the respondent’s guidelines for doctors were discriminatory and failed to protect his . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for Education and Employment and others ex parte Williamson and others HL 24-Feb-2005
The appellants were teachers in Christian schools who said that the blanket ban on corporal punishment interfered with their religious freedom. They saw moderate physical discipline as an essential part of educating children in a Christian manner. . .
Cited – Countryside Alliance and others v HM Attorney General and others Admn 29-Jul-2005
The various claimants sought to challenge the 2004 Act by way of judicial review on the grounds that it was ‘a disproportionate, unnecessary and illegitimate interference with their rights to choose how they conduct their lives, and with market . .
Cited – Adam, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department; Limbuela v Same; Tesema v Same HL 3-Nov-2005
The applicants had each entered the UK with a view to seeking asylum, but having failed to seek asylum immediately, they had been refused any assistance, were not allowed to work and so had been left destitute. Each had claimed asylum on the day . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v M HL 8-Mar-2006
The respondent’s child lived with the estranged father for most of each week. She was obliged to contribute child support. She now lived with a woman, and complained that because her relationship was homosexual, she had been asked to pay more than . .
Cited – Wilkinson v Kitzinger and others FD 31-Jul-2006
The parties had gone through a ceremony of marriage in Columbia, being both women. After the relationship failed, the claimant sought a declaration that the witholding of the recognition of same-sex marriages recoginised in a foreign jurisdiction . .
Cited – Brown v HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, the Executors of the Estate of and others FD 5-Jul-2007
The plaintiff sought the unsealing of the wills of the late Queen Mother and of the late Princess Margaret, claiming that these would assist him establishing that he was the illegitimate son of the latter.
Held: The application was frivolous. . .
Cited – In re P and Others, (Adoption: Unmarried couple) (Northern Ireland); In re G HL 18-Jun-2008
The applicants complained that as an unmarried couple they had been excluded from consideration as adopters.
Held: Northern Ireland legislation had not moved in the same way as it had for other jurisdictions within the UK. The greater . .
Cited – G, Regina (on the Application of) v Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust Admn 20-May-2008
The applicants were detained at Rampton. The form of detention denied the access to space in which they would be able to smoke cigarettes to comply with the law.
Held: The claim failed. The legislative objectives were sufficiently serious to . .
Cited – Countryside Alliance and others, Regina (on the Application of) v Attorney General and Another HL 28-Nov-2007
The appellants said that the 2004 Act infringed their rights under articles 8 11 and 14 and Art 1 of protocol 1.
Held: Article 8 protected the right to private and family life. Its purpose was to protect individuals from unjustified intrusion . .
Cited – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Another QBD 29-Oct-2008
The applicant suffered mutiple sclerosis and considered that she might wish to go abroad to end her life. She asked the court to make more clear the guidance provided by the Director as to whether her partner might be prosecuted under section 2(1) . .
Cited – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Another Admn 29-Oct-2008
The applicant said that the defendant had unlawfully failed to provide detailed guidance under section 10 of the 1985 Act, on the circumstances under which a prosecution might lie of a person performing acts which might assist another to commit . .
Cited – JL, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice; Regina (L (A Patient)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 26-Nov-2008
The prisoner was left with serious injury after attempting suicide in prison. He said that there was a human rights duty to hold an investigation into the circumstances leading up to this.
Held: There existed a similar duty to hold an enhanced . .
Cited – Marper v United Kingdom; S v United Kingdom ECHR 4-Dec-2008
(Grand Chamber) The applicants complained that on being arrested on suspicion of offences, samples of their DNA had been taken, but then despite being released without conviction, the samples had retained on the Police database.
Held: . .
Cited – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions and others CA 19-Feb-2009
The claimant suffered a debilitating terminal disease. She anticipated going to commit suicide at a clinic in Switzerland, and wanted first a clear policy so that her husband who might accompany her would know whether he might be prosecuted under . .
Cited – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 30-Jul-2009
Need for Certainty in Scope of Offence
The appellant suffered a severe chronic illness and anticipated that she might want to go to Switzerland to commit suicide. She would need her husband to accompany her, and sought an order requiring the respondent to provide clear guidelines on the . .
Cited – AB, Regina (On the Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice and Another Admn 4-Sep-2009
The claimant was serving a sentence of imprisonment. She was a pre-operative transgender woman, but held in a male prison. She sought review of a decision to refuse transfer to a women’s prison. The Gender Recognition Panel was satisfied that the . .
Cited – N, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Health; Regina (E) v Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust CA 24-Jul-2009
The claimants appealed against the imposition on them of smoking bans while they were compulsorily detained at Rampton Hospital. They said that other persons detained for example in prisons had been exempted fully.
Held: The right or freedom . .
Cited – MAK and RK v The United Kingdom ECHR 23-Mar-2010
mak_ukECHR10
When RK, a nine year old girl was taken to hospital, with bruises, the paediatrician wrongly suspecting sexual abuse, took blood samples and intimate photographs in the absence of the parents and without their consent.
Held: The doctor had . .
Cited – Goodwin v The United Kingdom ECHR 11-Jul-2002
The claimant was a post operative male to female trans-sexual. She claimed that her human rights were infringed when she was still treated as a man for National Insurance contributions purposes, where she continued to make payments after the age at . .
Cited – E and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v The Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 10-Jun-2011
Judicial review was sought of a decision by the respondent to prosecute a child for her alleged sexual abuse of her younger sisters. Agencies other than the police and CPS considered that a prosecution would harm both the applicant and her sisters. . .
Cited – Quila and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 12-Oct-2011
Parties challenged the rule allowing the respondent to deny the right to enter or remain here to non EU citizens marrying a person settled and present here where either party was under the age of 21. The aim of the rule was to deter forced . .
Cited – Nicklinson and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v A Primary Care Trust CA 31-Jul-2013
The claimant had suffered a severe form of locked-in syndrome, and would wish to die. He sought a declaration that someone who assisted him in his siuicide would not be prosecuted for murder.
Held: The position in law that voluntary euthanasia . .
Cited – Catt and T, Regina (on The Applications of) v Commissioner of Police of The Metropolis SC 4-Mar-2015
Police Data Retention Justifiable
The appellants challenged the collection of data by the police, alleging that its retention interfered with their Article 8 rights. C complained of the retention of records of his lawful activities attending political demonstrations, and T . .
Cited – Nicklinson and Another, Regina (on The Application of) SC 25-Jun-2014
Criminality of Assisting Suicide not Infringing
The court was asked: ‘whether the present state of the law of England and Wales relating to assisting suicide infringes the European Convention on Human Rights, and whether the code published by the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to . .
Cited – Janner, Regina (on The Application of) v The Crown Prosecution Service Admn 13-Aug-2015
The claimant challenged the decision that he should face trial on charges of historic sexual abuse. He was now elderly and said to be unfit to attend court or instruct his lawyers, suffering Alzheimers. He sought interim relief against being . .
Cited – Kenward and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v The Director of Public Prosecutions and Another Admn 4-Dec-2015
The claimants challenged the policy issued by the DPP on assisted suicide following the Nicklinson case.
Held: The request for judicial review was refused.
Sir Brian Leveson P said: ‘It is important not to misunderstand the effect either . .
Cited – McCann v The State Hospitals Board for Scotland SC 11-Apr-2017
A challenge by request for judicial review to the legality of the comprehensive ban on smoking at the State Hospital at Carstairs which the State Hospitals Board adopted. The appellant, a detained patient, did not challenge the ban on smoking . .
Cited – ZXC v Bloomberg Lp CA 15-May-2020
Privacy Expecation during police investigations
Appeal from a judgment finding that the Defendant had breached the Claimant’s privacy rights. He made an award of damages for the infraction of those rights and granted an injunction restraining Bloomberg from publishing information which further . .
Cited – Human Rights Commission for Judicial Review (Northern Ireland : Abortion) SC 7-Jun-2018
The Commission challenged the compatibility of the NI law relating to banning nearly all abortions with Human Rights Law. It now challenged a decision that it did not have standing to bring the case.
Held: (Lady Hale, Lord Kerr and Lord Wilson . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Human Rights, Crime, Health

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.170322

Nicklinson v Ministry of Justice and Others: QBD 12 Mar 2012

The claimant suffered locked-in syndrome and sought relief in a form which would allow others to assist him in committing suicide. The court considered whether the case should be allowed to proceed rather than to be struck out as hopeless.
Held: The case was arguable and should be allowed to proceed: ‘However, the point that the common law and the application of its principles is capable of development and change by the courts on a case by case basis does not mean that the courts should so develop or change the law, particularly when it is settled, and involves issues of policy and ethical issues on which there are differing and strongly held views.’

Charles J
124 BMLR 191, [2012] Med LR 383, (2012) 15 CCL Rep 427, [2012] WLR(D) 75, (2012) 124 BMLR 191, [2012] HRLR 16, [2012] EWHC 304 (QB)
WLRD, Bailii
Human Rights Act 1998 1 6
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 30-Jul-2009
Need for Certainty in Scope of Offence
The appellant suffered a severe chronic illness and anticipated that she might want to go to Switzerland to commit suicide. She would need her husband to accompany her, and sought an order requiring the respondent to provide clear guidelines on the . .
Cited – In re P and Others, (Adoption: Unmarried couple) (Northern Ireland); In re G HL 18-Jun-2008
The applicants complained that as an unmarried couple they had been excluded from consideration as adopters.
Held: Northern Ireland legislation had not moved in the same way as it had for other jurisdictions within the UK. The greater . .
Cited – In Re A (Minors) (Conjoined Twins: Medical Treatment) (No 2) CA 15-Nov-2000
The failure by the Official Solicitor to pursue an appeal where leave had been granted, in a case of an application to the court for leave to separate conjoined twins, which separation would lead to the death of one of them, would not of itself . .
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 . .
Cited – In re F (Mental Patient: Sterilisation) HL 4-May-1989
Where a patient lacks capacity, there is the power to provide him with whatever treatment or care is necessary in his own best interests. Medical treatment can be undertaken in an emergency even if, through a lack of capacity, no consent had been . .
Cited – Airedale NHS Trust v Bland HL 4-Feb-1993
Procedures on Withdrawal of Life Support Treatment
The patient had been severely injured in the Hillsborough disaster, and had come to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). The doctors sought permission to withdraw medical treatment. The Official Solicitor appealed against an order of the Court . .
Cited – 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 – Regina v Brown (Anthony); Regina v Lucas; etc HL 11-Mar-1993
The appellants had been convicted of assault, after having engaged in consensual acts of sado-masochism in which they inflicted varying degreees of physical self harm. They had pleaded guilty after a ruling that the prosecution had not needed to . .
Cited – In Re L (By His Next Friend GE); Regina v Bournewood Community and Mental Health NHS Trust, Ex Parte L HL 25-Jun-1998
The applicant was an adult autistic, unable to consent to medical treatment. Treatment was provided at a day centre. He had been detained informally under the Act and against the wishes of his carers, but the Court of Appeal decided he should have . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for The Home Department Ex Parte Simms HL 8-Jul-1999
Ban on Prisoners talking to Journalists unlawful
The two prisoners, serving life sentences for murder, had had their appeals rejected. They continued to protest innocence, and sought to bring their campaigns to public attention through the press, having oral interviews with journalists without . .
Cited – In Re F (Adult: Court’s Jurisdiction) CA 25-Jul-2000
The local authority sought a declaration as to its rights to control the daily activities of an eighteen year old, who was incapable of managing her own affairs but was not subject to mental health legislation.
Held: There remained an inherent . .
Cited – Regina (on the Application of Pretty) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 29-Nov-2001
The applicant was terminally ill, and entirely dependent upon her husband for care. She foresaw a time when she would wish to take her own life, but would not be able to do so without the active assistance of her husband. She sought a proleptic . .
Cited – Regina v Her Majesty’s Attorney General ex parte Rusbridger and Another HL 26-Jun-2003
Limit to Declaratory Refilef as to Future Acts
The applicant newspaper editor wanted to campaign for a republican government. Articles were published, and he sought confirmation that he would not be prosecuted under the Act, in the light of the 1998 Act.
Held: Declaratory relief as to the . .

Cited by:
See Also – Nicklinson, Regina (on The Application of) v Ministry of Justice Admn 16-Aug-2012
The claimants each suffered ‘locked in syndrome’ after catastrophic health events, and were unable to commit suicide as they would have wished. In one case, the claimant would have needed assistance to travel to a clinic in Switzerland where he . .
See Also – Nicklinson and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v A Primary Care Trust CA 31-Jul-2013
The claimant had suffered a severe form of locked-in syndrome, and would wish to die. He sought a declaration that someone who assisted him in his siuicide would not be prosecuted for murder.
Held: The position in law that voluntary euthanasia . .
See Also – Nicklinson and Another, Regina (on The Application of) SC 25-Jun-2014
Criminality of Assisting Suicide not Infringing
The court was asked: ‘whether the present state of the law of England and Wales relating to assisting suicide infringes the European Convention on Human Rights, and whether the code published by the Director of Public Prosecutions relating to . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Health, Crime, Human Rights

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.451883

Marshall, Regina v: CACD 6 Mar 1998

Sale of Unexpired Portion of Ticket can be a Theft

The defendants had been using London Underground tickets, but selling on the unused balance after their journey. On a ruling at trial, they pleaded guilty to theft, but now appealed.
Held: The appeals failed. Although the tickets had passed to the possession or control of the passenger, they remained the property of LU.
Held: The appeals failed: ‘it is arguable, we suppose, that by the transaction each party has acquired a chose in action. On the side of the purchaser it is represented by a right to use the ticket to the extent which it allows travel on the underground system. On the side of London Underground it encompasses the right to insist that the ticket is used by no one other than the purchaser. It is that right which is disregarded when the ticket is acquired by the appellant and sold on. But here the charges were in relation to the tickets and travel cards themselves and a ticket form or travel card and, dare we say, a cheque form is not a chose in action. The fact that the ticket form or travel card may find its way back into the possession of London Underground, albeit with its usefulness or ‘virtue’ exhausted, is nothing to the point. Section 6 (1) prevails . .’

Times 10-Mar-1998, [1998] 2 Cr App Rep 282, [2000] EWCA Crim 3530
Bailii
Theft Act 1968 1 6(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Shannon 1973
An appeal will lie from a conviction entered upon a plea of guilty where that plea is a consequence of an earlier incorrect ruling in law. . .
Cited – Regina v Vickers CACD 1975
Before arraignment, the judge had heard submissions of law on admitted facts. The judge ruled that if those admitted facts were proved or admitted in the forthcoming trial they would amount to an admission or conclusive evidence of the accused’s . .
Cited – Regina v Morris (David); Anderton v Burnside HL 2-Jan-1983
The defendants had been accused of theft. One switched labels on a joint of pork in a supermarket, and the other presented the meat with the now cheaper label for purchase.
Held: The appeals were dismissed. There can be no conviction for theft . .
Cited – Lloyd and Another, Regina v CACD 23-Apr-1985
Lord Lane LCJ said: ‘Bearing in mind the observation of Edmund Davis LJ in Warner (1970) 55 CAR 93, we would try to interpret the section in such a way as to ensure that nothing is construed as an intention permanently to deprive which would not . .
Cited – Regina v Fernandez CACD 22-May-1995
The procuring of the signing of a valuable security when intending to treat the document as one’s own can amount to theft.
Lord Justice Auld said: ‘In our view section 6 (1), which is expressed in general terms, is not limited in its . .
Cited – Regina v Preddy; Regina v Slade; Regina v Dhillon (Conjoined Appeals) HL 10-Jul-1996
The appellants were said to have made false mortgage applications. They appealed convictions for dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
Held: A chose in action created by an electronic bank transfer was not property which was capable of . .
Cited – Torkington v Magee 11-Jul-1902
Chose in Action defined
The effect of the 1873 Act was essentially procedural and it did not render choses in action that had not previously been assignable in equity capable of assignment.
Channell J defined a debt or other legal chose in action: ”Chose in Action’ . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.466410

Syed v Director of Public Prosecutions: Admn 13 Jan 2010

The defendant appealed by case stated against his conviction for assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty. Three officers responded to a report of a disturbance and entered his house despite his struggle. The officers purported to use their powers under section 17 of the 1984 Act.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The entry was unlawful. The magistrates had accepted as a test that the officers had acted out of concern for the welfare of somebody in the house. That test was too low: ‘Parliament intended that the right of entry by force without any warrant should be limited to cases where there was an apprehension that something serious was otherwise likely to occur, or perhaps had occurred, within the house, hence the adjective ‘serious’ applied to any question of damage . . it again indicates a serious matter – that what had happened in the premises, or what might happen in the premises, would involve some serious injury to an individual therein.’

Mr Justice Collins and Mr Justice Silber
[2010] 1 Cr App Rep 34, (2010) 174 JP 97, [2010] EWHC 81 (Admin), Times 26-Jan-2010
Bailii
Police Act 1996 89(1), Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 17(1)(e)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Bourne (Inspector of Taxes) v Norwich Crematorium Ltd 1967
Stamp J said: ‘Sentences are not mere collections of words to be taken out of the sentence, defined separately by reference to the dictionary or decided cases, and then put back again into the sentence with the meaning which one has assigned to them . .
Cited – Baker v Crown Prosecution Service Admn 27-Jan-2009
Complaint was made as to the entry by police officers into premises seeking a knife.
Held: May LJ said: ‘The expression ‘saving life or limb’ is a colourful, slightly outmoded expression. It is here used in close proximity with the expression . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Police, Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.393392

Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions and others: CA 19 Feb 2009

The claimant suffered a debilitating terminal disease. She anticipated going to commit suicide at a clinic in Switzerland, and wanted first a clear policy so that her husband who might accompany her would know whether he might be prosecuted under the 1961 Act.
Held: The court considered the Code for Crown prosecutors, and other Guidance offered by the respondent. The claimant’s article 8 rights were engaged.
The decisions of the House of Lords and ECHR in the Pretty case were inconsistent, and the court considered whether the House’s decision in Pretty remained binding. This had been settled in Kay v Lambeth LBC. The Court of Appeal should leave the House to reassess its decision save in very exceptional cases. This was not such a case. Nor did the Countryside Alliance case amount to a re-assessment of Pretty by the House.
The offence was clearly stated, and the requirement for consent to a prosecution did not make it less so: ‘The absence of a crime-specific policy relating to assisted suicide does not make the operation and effect of section 2(1) of the 1961 Act unlawful nor mean that it is not in accordance with law for the purposes of Article 8(2). Like this Court the DPP cannot dispense with or suspend the operation of section 2(1) of the 1961 Act, and he cannot promulgate a case-specific policy in the kind of certain terms sought by Ms Purdy which would, in effect, recognise exceptional defences to this offence which Parliament has not chosen to enact.’
Lord Judge CJ said: ‘their Lordships intended to give the Court of Appeal very limited freedom, only in the most exceptional circumstances, to override what would otherwise be the binding precedent of the decision of the House. They clearly required more than the bare fact of the same parties being involved in order to bring the case within the very narrow confines of the very exceptional case, one of an extreme character, or of wholly exceptional circumstances, with the emphasis added by us to phrases from their Lordships’ speeches. We are not seeking to be released from these strictures. The structure of judicial precedent, designed over the years, has served us well. The decisions of the European Court do not bind us. The decisions of the House of Lords do. By-passing or finding an alternative route around the decisions of the House of Lords, on the basis of the jurisprudence of the European Court would, in the ultimate analysis, be productive of considerable uncertainty. Therefore if the strictures are too tight, it is their Lordships who, if they think it appropriate, must release the knot. As it is, and in any event, we cannot bring this case within the required degree of exceptionality.’

Lord Judge CJ, Ward LJ, Lloyd LJ
Times 24-Feb-2009, [2009] EWCA Civ 92, [2009] 1 Cr App R 32, (2009) 159 NLJ 309, [2009] WLR (D) 62, (2009) 106 BMLR 170, [2009] UKHRR 1005
Bailii, WLRD
Suicide Act 1961 1 2(4), European Convention on Human Rights 8
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Smedleys Limited v Breed HL 1974
The defendant company had sold a can of peas. A caterpillar was found in it.
Held: Despite having shown that they had taken all reasonable care, the defendant was guilty of selling food not to the standard required. The defence under the Act . .
Cited – Pretty v The United Kingdom ECHR 29-Apr-2002
Right to Life Did Not include Right to Death
The applicant was paralysed and suffered a degenerative condition. She wanted her husband to be allowed to assist her suicide by accompanying her to Switzerland. English law would not excuse such behaviour. She argued that the right to die is not . .
Cited – Regina (on the Application of Pretty) v Director of Public Prosecutions and Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 29-Nov-2001
The applicant was terminally ill, and entirely dependent upon her husband for care. She foresaw a time when she would wish to take her own life, but would not be able to do so without the active assistance of her husband. She sought a proleptic . .
Cited – Regina v Hough CACD 1984
The court considered the purpose of section 2 of the 1961 Act. Lord Lane CJ observed: ‘It is clear . . that Parliament had in mind the potential scope for disaster and malpractice in circumstances where elderly, infirm and easily suggestible people . .
Cited – Schloendorff v Society of New York Hospital 1913
(USA) The libertarian principle of self-determination allows that ‘Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body, and a surgeon who performs an operation without the patient’s consent . .
Cited – Airedale NHS Trust v Bland HL 4-Feb-1993
Procedures on Withdrawal of Life Support Treatment
The patient had been severely injured in the Hillsborough disaster, and had come to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). The doctors sought permission to withdraw medical treatment. The Official Solicitor appealed against an order of the Court . .
Cited – In re F (Mental Patient: Sterilisation) HL 4-May-1989
Where a patient lacks capacity, there is the power to provide him with whatever treatment or care is necessary in his own best interests. Medical treatment can be undertaken in an emergency even if, through a lack of capacity, no consent had been . .
Cited – Rodriguez v Attorney General of Canada 30-Sep-1993
Canlii (Supreme Court of Canada) Constitutional law – Charter of Rights – Life, liberty and security of the person – Fundamental justice – Terminally ill patient seeking assistance to commit suicide – Whether . .
Cited – Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent) HL 1966
The House gave guidance how it would treat an invitation to depart from a previous decision of the House. Such a course was possible, but the direction was not an ‘open sesame’ for a differently constituted committee to prefer their views to those . .
Cited – RJM, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions HL 22-Oct-2008
The 1987 Regulations provided additional benefits for disabled persons, but excluded from benefit those who had nowhere to sleep. The claimant said this was irrational. He had been receiving the disability premium to his benefits, but this was . .
Cited – Kay and Another v London Borough of Lambeth and others; Leeds City Council v Price and others and others HL 8-Mar-2006
In each case the local authority sought to recover possession of its own land. In the Lambeth case, they asserted this right as against an overstaying former tenant, and in the Leeds case as against gypsies. In each case the occupiers said that the . .
Cited – Cassell and Co Ltd v Broome and Another HL 23-Feb-1972
Exemplary Damages Award in Defamation
The plaintiff had been awarded damages for defamation. The defendants pleaded justification. Before the trial the plaintiff gave notice that he wanted additional, exemplary, damages. The trial judge said that such a claim had to have been pleaded. . .
Cited – Countryside Alliance and others, Regina (on the Application of) v Attorney General and Another HL 28-Nov-2007
The appellants said that the 2004 Act infringed their rights under articles 8 11 and 14 and Art 1 of protocol 1.
Held: Article 8 protected the right to private and family life. Its purpose was to protect individuals from unjustified intrusion . .
Cited – Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza HL 21-Jun-2004
Same Sex Partner Entitled to tenancy Succession
The protected tenant had died. His same-sex partner sought a statutory inheritance of the tenancy.
Held: His appeal succeeded. The Fitzpatrick case referred to the position before the 1998 Act: ‘Discriminatory law undermines the rule of law . .
Cited – X (Minors) v Bedfordshire County Council; M (A Minor) and Another v Newham London Borough Council; Etc HL 29-Jun-1995
Liability in Damages on Statute Breach to be Clear
Damages were to be awarded against a Local Authority for breach of statutory duty in a care case only if the statute was clear that damages were capable of being awarded. in the ordinary case a breach of statutory duty does not, by itself, give rise . .
Cited – Regina v Sectretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Razgar etc HL 17-Jun-2004
The claimant resisted removal after failure of his claim for asylum, saying that this would have serious adverse consequences to his mental health, infringing his rights under article 8. He appealed the respondent’s certificate that his claim was . .
Cited – Dunbar (As Administrator of Tony Dunbar Deceased) v Plant CA 23-Jul-1997
The couple had decided on a suicide pact. They made repeated attempts, resulting in his death. Property had been held in joint names. The deceased’s father asked the court to apply the 1982 Act to disentitle Miss Plant.
Held: The appeal was . .
Cited – London Street Tramways v London County Council HL 25-Apr-1898
House Decisions binding on Itself
The House laid down principles for the doctrine of precedent. When faced with the hypothesis that a case might have been decided in ignorance of the existence of some relevant statutory provision or in reliance on some statutory provision which was . .
Cited – Regina v Boyd, Hastie, Spear (Courts Martial Appeal Court), Regina v Saunby, Clarkson, English, Williams, Dodds, and others HL 18-Jul-2002
Corts Martial System Complant with Human Rights
The applicants were each convicted by courts martial of offences under civil law. They claimed that the courts martial were not independent tribunals because of the position of the president of the court, and that it was wrong to try a serviceman by . .

Cited by:
Appeal from – Purdy, Regina (on the Application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions HL 30-Jul-2009
Need for Certainty in Scope of Offence
The appellant suffered a severe chronic illness and anticipated that she might want to go to Switzerland to commit suicide. She would need her husband to accompany her, and sought an order requiring the respondent to provide clear guidelines on the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Human Rights, Constitutional

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.295117

Regina v Khan; Regina v Lockett: CACD 12 Mar 2009

The defendants appealed against confiscation orders made on conviction for dealing with goods with intent to defraud the CandE of payable duty namely in bringing in excess numbers of cigarettes.
Held: The appeal succeeded. In many cases the Customs and Excise had prosecuted on a basis which was invalidated by the alteration of the 1992 regulations by the 2001 Regulations. The confiscation orders were quashed.

Lord Justice Hughes, Vice-President, Mr Justice King and Judge Gordon
Times 26-Apr-2009
Tobacco Products Regulations 2001 (SI 2001 No 1712) 13, Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 170(1)(b), Excise Goods (Holding, Movement, Warehousing and REDS) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992 No 3135) 5, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Chambers, Regina v CACD 17-Oct-2008
The court found that a customs prosecution for evasion of duty by excess tobacco imports was incorrectly founded, after failing to acknowledge a change in the 1992 Regulations brought in in 2001. Also, a day labourer who had merely assisted in . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Customs and Excise

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.341216

Regina v Edwards: 1975

On a charge of selling intoxicating liquor without a justices’ licence, it is not for the prosecutor to prove that the defendant had no licence but for the defendant to prove that he had. The burden of establishing a statutory exemption by way of a defence lays on the defendant. The court considered the narrow exception allowing the shift of the burden of proof. Lawton LJ said: ‘In our judgment this line of authority establishes that over the centuries the common law, as a result of experience and the need to ensure that justice is done both to the community and to defendants, has evolved an exception to the fundamental rule of our criminal law that the prosecution must prove every element of the offence charged. This exception, like so much else in the common law, was hammered out on the anvil of pleading. It is limited to offences arising under enactments which prohibit the doing of an act save in specified circumstances or by persons of specified classes or specified qualifications or with the licence or permission of specified authorities. Whenever the prosecution seeks to rely on this exception, the court must construe the enactment under which the charge is laid. If the true construction is that the enactment prohibits the doing of acts, subject to provisos, exemptions and the like, then the prosecution can rely upon the exception.’
The application of this principle was not dependant upon either the fact or the presumption that the defendant had peculiar knowledge enabling him to prove the position of any negative averment, and: ‘Two consequences follow from the view we have taken as to the evolution and nature of this exception. First, as it comes into operation on an enactment construed in a particular way, there is no need for the prosecution to prove a prima facie case of lack of excuse, qualification or the like; and secondly, what shifts is the onus: it is for the defendant to prove that he was entitled to do the prohibited act. What rests on him is the legal, or, as it is sometimes called, the persuasive burden of proof. It is not the evidential burden.’

Lawton LJ, Lord Widgery CJ, Ashworth J
[1975] 1 QB 27
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Lambert HL 5-Jul-2001
Restraint on Interference with Burden of Proof
The defendant had been convicted for possessing drugs found on him in a bag when he was arrested. He denied knowing of them. He was convicted having failed to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that he had not known of the drugs. The case was . .
Cited – Sheldrake v Director of Public Prosecutions; Attorney General’s Reference No 4 of 2002 HL 14-Oct-2004
Appeals were brought complaining as to the apparent reversal of the burden of proof in road traffic cases and in cases under the Terrorism Acts. Was a legal or an evidential burden placed on a defendant?
Held: Lord Bingham of Cornhill said: . .
Approved – Regina v Hunt (Richard) HL 1987
The court objected to the insistence on leaving the burden throughout a prosecution on the defendant on the ground that ‘the discharge of an evidential burden proves nothing – it merely raises an issue’. The House emphasised the special nature of . .
Cited – Clarke v Regina CACD 23-Apr-2008
The defendant appealed his conviction for providing immigration services when not qualified to do so. . .
Cited – Grundy and Co Excavations Ltd and Another, Regina (on the Application of) v Halton Division Magistrates Court Admn 24-Feb-2003
A reverse legal burden applied to defendants accused of an offence under section 17 of the Forestry Act 1967 which, in specified circumstances, created an absolute offence of felling a tree without a felling licence. Clarke LJ said: ‘It is thus . .
Cited – Regina v Alath Construction Ltd CACD 1990
The defendant company was accused of felling a tree in breach of a tree preservation order. Recorder Zucker QC had ruled held that the prosecution did not have to prove that the tree in question was not dying, or dead or dangerous or creating a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.194984

Partridge v Crittenden: QBD 1968

The defendant advertised for sale ‘Bramblefinch cocks, Bramblefinch hens, 25s each’. It would be an offence unlawfully to offer a wild live bird for sale.
Held: The advert was an invitation to treat, not an offer for sale, and he was not guilty.

[1968] 2 All ER 421, [1968] 1 WLR 1204
Protection of Birds Act 1954 6(1) Sch 4
England and Wales

Contract, Animals, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.252547

Regina v Shulman, Regina v Prentice, Regina v Adomako and Regina v Holloway: CACD 21 May 1993

A patient had been injected with the wrong medicine, and died as a result.
Held: The ingredients of the offence of involuntary manslaughter by breach of duty are the existence and breach of a duty, which had caused death and gross negligence considered so serious as to justify a criminal conviction; the jury might properly find gross negligence on proof of indifference to an obvious risk of injury to health or of actual foresight of the risk coupled either with a determination nevertheless to run it or with an intention to avoid it but involving such a high degree of negligence in the attempted avoidance as the jury considered justified conviction or of inattention or failure to advert to a serious risk going beyond mere inadvertence in respect of an obvious and important matter which the defendant’s duty demanded he should address; The appeals of the two junior doctors and the electrician would be allowed and the appeal of the anaesthetist, namely Dr. Adomako, was be dismissed.

Independent 21-May-1993, Gazette 30-Jun-1993, Times 21-May-1993
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Director of Public Prosecutions, ex parte Jones CA 2000
A company Managing Director had arranged for a dockside crane to be adapted, so that with the jaws of the grab bucket open bags could be attached to hooks fitted within the bucket. Jones was in the hold of a ship loading bags onto the hooks when the . .
Cited – Regina on the Application of Rowley v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 4-Apr-2003
The applicant sought to challenge a decision not to prosecute a third party following the death of her son. He had been in care, having multiple disabilities, including epilepsy. He drowned whilst in a bath. It had been recognised that he needed . .
Appeal from – Regina v Shulman, Regina v Prentice, Regina v Adomako; Regina v Holloway HL 1-Jul-1994
An anaesthetist failed to observe an operation properly, and did not notice that a tube had become disconnected from a ventilator. The patient suffered a cardiac arrest and died, and the defendant was convicted of manslaughter, being guilty of gross . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Health Professions

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.87569

Clingham (formerly C (a minor)) v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; Regina v Crown Court at Manchester Ex parte McCann and Others: HL 17 Oct 2002

The applicants had been made subject of anti-social behaviour orders. They challenged the basis upon which the orders had been made.
Held: The orders had no identifiable consequences which would make the process a criminal one. Civil standards of evidence therefore applied, and hearsay evidence was admissible. Nevertheless, the test as to whether it was appropriate to make an order was to the criminal standard. It had been Parliament’s intention to cast these proceedings in a civil mould. The absence of a punitive element in the resulting order, meant that Human Rights law did not make it a criminal procedure. ‘proceedings to obtain an anti-social behaviour order are civil proceedings under domestic law.’ Nevertheless, the heightened civil standard had become almost indistinguishable from the standard in criminal cases, and the case must be proved to the heightened civil standard. Though an anti-social behaviour order may impose restrictions greater than would be a criminal penalty, the essential purpose of an oder is preventative.

Steyn, Hope, Hutton, Hobhouse, Scott LL
Times 21-Oct-2002, [2002] UKHL 39, [2002] 3 WLR 1313, [2003] 1 AC 787, [2002] 4 All ER 593, [2003] BLGR 57, [2002] 13 BHRC 482, (2002) 166 JPN 850, (2002) 166 JP 657, [2003] HLR 17, [2002] UKHRR 1286, [2003] 1 Cr App R 27
House of Lords, Bailii
Crime and Disorder Act 1998 1, European Convention on Human Rights 6
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Steel and Others v The United Kingdom ECHR 23-Sep-1998
The several applicants had been arrested in different circumstances and each charged with breach of the peace contrary to common law. Under the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980, the court can bind over a Defendant to keep the peace, if the Defendant . .
Cited – In re H and R (Minors) (Child Sexual Abuse: Standard of Proof) HL 14-Dec-1995
Evidence allowed – Care Application after Abuse
Children had made allegations of serious sexual abuse against their step-father. He was acquitted at trial, but the local authority went ahead with care proceedings. The parents appealed against a finding that a likely risk to the children had still . .
Appeal from – Regina (McCann and Others) v Manchester Crown Court CA 9-Mar-2001
Proceedings applying for an anti-social behaviour order, were properly civil proceedings, with civil standards of evidence, and the Human Rights Act provisions relating to criminal proceedings, were not applicable either. The section included acts . .
At First Instance – Regina v Manchester Crown Court, ex parte McCann and others QBD 22-Nov-2000
An application for an anti-social behaviour order against an individual was a civil, not a criminal proceeding. The standard of evidence required was on the balance of probability; the civil standard. Such proceedings were not subject to the . .
Cited – Regina v Kansal CACD 24-Jun-1992
K had been convicted of two counts of obtaining property by deception contrary to section 15 of the Theft Act 1968. He was also convicted of two counts under the Insolvency Act 1986, namely that being a bankrupt (a) he removed property which he was . .
Cited – Regina v Kansal (2) HL 29-Nov-2001
The prosecutor had lead and relied at trial on evidence obtained by compulsory questioning under the 1986 Act.
Held: In doing so the prosecutor was acting to give effect to section 433.
The decision in Lambert to disallow retrospective . .
Appeal from – Regina v Marylebone Magistrates Court ex parte Andrew Clingham Admn 20-Feb-2001
The council received a report by a housing trust about the behaviour of the defendant, then aged 16, who lived on an estate within the Borough, and after investigating applied for an anti-social behaviour order. Some witness statements contained . .
Cited – Dombo Beheer BV v The Netherlands ECHR 27-Oct-1993
‘under the principle of equality of arms, as one of the features of the wider concept of a fair trial, each party must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present his case under conditions that do not place him at a disadvantage vis-a-vis his . .
Cited – Regina v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Ex Parte McCormick CA 10-Feb-1998
Statements made under compulsion could be used in disqualification proceedings at discretion of the Secretary of State. . .
Cited – In Re Carecraft Construction Co Ltd ChD 13-Oct-1993
A court must hear evidence before disqualifying directors. Though the Director and the Secretary of State might reach an agreement as to what should happen, they could not displace the court in deciding what order should be made, and in making that . .
Cited – Official Receiver v Stern and Another CA 20-Nov-2001
The director appealed against a 12 year disqualification. The basis of the disqualification was unlawful trading to the detriment of creditors, and taking excess drawings. . .
Cited – Gough and Another v Chief Constable of Derbyshire CA 20-Mar-2002
The appellants challenged the legality under European law of orders under the Act restricting their freedom of movement, after suspicion of involvement in football violence.
Held: Although the proceedings under which orders were made were . .
Cited – Gough and Another v Chief Constable of Derbyshire; Regina (Miller) v Leeds Magistrates’ Court; Lilley v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 13-Jul-2001
Challenges were made to the powers banning the free movement of those convicted of offences of violence. Orders had been made banning the applicants from attending football matches, and requiring attendance at police stations at times of matches . .
Cited – Stott (Procurator Fiscal, Dunfermline) and Another v Brown PC 5-Dec-2000
The system under which the registered keeper of a vehicle was obliged to identify herself as the driver, and such admission was to be used subsequently as evidence against her on a charge of driving with excess alcohol, was not a breach of her right . .
Cited – Proprietary Articles Trade Association v Attorney-General for Canada PC 1931
The Board was asked how to identify whether an allegation amounted to a criminal one. Lord Atkin said: ‘It appears to their Lordships to be of little value to seek to confine crimes to a category of acts which by their very nature belong to the . .
Cited – B v Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary QBD 5-Apr-2000
The defendant appealed the making of a sex offender order under 1998 Act. The justices had found that the defendant was a sex offender within section 2(1)(a) and that he had acted on a number of occasions in a way which brought him within section . .
Cited – Customs and Excise Commissioners v City of London Magistrates’ Court QBD 2000
Access orders were sought by the Customs and Excise against banks to facilitate an investigation into the affairs of taxpayers and the issue was whether the resulting proceedings constituted ‘criminal proceedings’ within the meaning of section . .
Cited – Amand v Home Secretary and Minister of Defence of Royal Netherlands Government HL 1943
A Dutch serviceman who had been arrested for desertion and brought before a magistrate who ordered him to be handed over to the Dutch military authorities under the Allied Forces Act 1940. An application for habeas corpus was rejected by a . .
Cited – Engel And Others v The Netherlands (1) ECHR 8-Jun-1976
engel_netherlandsECHR1976
The court was asked whether proceedings in a military court against soldiers for disciplinary offences involved criminal charges within the meaning of Article 6(1): ‘In this connection, it is first necessary to know whether the provision(s) defining . .
Cited – Han and Yau t/a Murdishaw Supper Bar, and Others v Commissioners of Customs and Excise CA 3-Jul-2001
The applicant claimed that proceedings under which he had been accused of fraud in dishonestly evading VAT liability were in reality criminal proceedings and that the minimum standards of a fair trial applied.
Held: The characterisation under . .
Cited – S v Miller SCS 2001
After an assault S, aged 15, was detained, arrested and charged with assaulting L. The procurator fiscal decided not to prosecute, and the matter was reported to the police and to the reporter and on to a children’s hearing to consider if measures . .
Cited – McGregor v D 1977
With regard to proceedings under the 1968 Act, in no sense were these proceedings criminal proceedings. They were on the contrary civil proceedings sui generis. Where the ground of referral is that the child has committed an offence and the sheriff . .
Cited – Lutz v Germany ECHR 25-Aug-1987
Only criminal charges attract the additional protections under article 6(2) and 6(3). Insofar as these provisions apply to ‘everyone charged with a criminal offence’ it is well established in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights . .
Cited – Albert And Le Compte v Belgium (Article 50) ECHR 24-Oct-1983
The applicants were Belgian nationals and medical practitioners. Dr Le Compte was suspended from practising medicine for two years for an offence against professional discipline. He appealed to the Appeals Council, alleging violations of Article 6. . .
Cited – Constanda v M SCS 1977
The child had been referred to a children’s hearing on the basis that he was exposed to moral danger in terms of section 32(2)(b).
Held: As the whole substratum of the ground of referral was that the child had performed certain acts which . .
Cited – Adolf v Austria ECHR 26-Mar-1982
An elderly lady complained that the applicant had assaulted her. The police investigated and reported back to the prosecutor who referred the matter to the Innsbruck District Court. The court registered the case as a ‘punishable act’ under section . .
Cited – Benham v United Kingdom ECHR 8-Feb-1995
Legal Aid was wrongfully refused where a tax or fine defaulter was liable to imprisonment, and the lack of a proper means enquiry, made imprisonment of poll tax defaulter unlawful. A poll tax defaulter had been wrongly committed to prison by . .
Cited – Ravnsborg v Sweden ECHR 23-Mar-1994
Article 6 did not apply to proceedings where the applicant had been fined for making improper statements in written observations before the Swedish courts. The proceedings were regarded as being outside the ambit of article 6 because they were . .
Cited – Deweer v Belgium ECHR 27-Feb-1980
The applicant, a Belgian butcher, paid a fine by way of settlement in the face of an order for the closure of his shop until judgment was given in an intended criminal prosecution or until such fine was paid.
Held: Since the payment was made . .
Cited – Garyfallou Aebe v Greece ECHR 24-Sep-1997
The fact that only a fine was imposed did not prevent an allegation being one of a criminal offence. . .
Cited – Bendenoun v France ECHR 24-Feb-1994
The applicant complained of non-disclosure by the prosecution.
Held: His application failed because the undisclosed material had not been relied on by the prosecution and he had given no sufficiently specific reasons for requesting the . .
Cited – McFeeley and others v The United Kingdom ECHR 15-May-1980
(Commission) The claimants had been convicted of terrorist-type offences in Northern Ireland and were serving prisoners in HMP The Maze. They protested at a change of regime imposed in 1976, resulting in them not being permitted association with the . .
Cited – Raimondo v Italy ECHR 22-Feb-1994
The applicant was arrested and placed under house arrest on charges relating to his association with the Mafia. As an interim measure some of his property was seized. The proceedings ended in his acquittal. He claimed that the seizure of his . .
Illustrative – Saidi v France ECHR 20-Sep-1993
S had been convicted on the basis of the evidence of drug addicts and in the situation where there was no opportunity to confront the witness.
Held: ‘The court reiterates that the taking of evidence is governed primarily by the rules of . .
Cited – Guzzardi v Italy ECHR 6-Nov-1980
The applicant, a suspected Mafioso, had been detained in custody pending his trial. At the end of the maximum period of detention pending trial, he had been taken to an island where, he complained, he was unable to work, keep his family permanently . .
Cited – M v Italy ECHR 1991
The Commission held that article 6(2) did not apply to the confiscation of property belonging to a person suspected of being a member of a mafia-type organisation. . .
Illustrative – Kostovski v The Netherlands ECHR 20-Nov-1989
No Anonymity for Witnessses in Criminal Trial
K was convicted of armed robbery on the basis of statements of anonymous witnesses. He was unable to question those witnesses at any stage. Being unaware of the identity of the witnesses deprived K of the very particulars which would have enabled . .
Cited – Ozturk v Germany ECHR 21-Feb-1984
A minor infringement may be the subject of a criminal charge: ‘If the Contracting States were able at their discretion, by classifying an offence as ‘regulatory’ instead of criminal, to exclude the operation of the fundamental clauses of Articles 6 . .
Illustrative – Unterpertinger v Austria ECHR 24-Nov-1986
The defendant was convicted of causing actual bodily harm, mainly on the basis of statements which his wife and daughter had given to the police. His wife and daughter took advantage of their right not to give evidence at his trial and so could not . .
Cited – Percy v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 13-Dec-1994
A woman protester repeatedly climbed over the perimeter fencing into a military base.
Held: The defendant had a choice between agreeing to be bound over and going to prison. Her refusal to agree to be bound over had an immediate and obvious . .
Cited – In re S (Minors) (Care Order: Implementation of Care Plan) HL 14-Mar-2002
Section 3(1) of the 1998 Act is not available where the suggested interpretation is contrary to express statutory words or is by implication necessarily contradicted by the statute. The judge’s task is to interpret, not to legislate. The proposed . .
Cited – Sporrong and Lonnroth v Sweden ECHR 23-Sep-1982
Balance of Interests in peaceful enjoyment claim
(Plenary Court) The claimants challenged orders expropriating their properties for redevelopment, and the banning of construction pending redevelopment. The orders remained in place for many years.
Held: Article 1 comprises three distinct . .
Cited – Doorson v The Netherlands ECHR 26-Mar-1996
Evidence was given in criminal trials by anonymous witnesses and evidence was also read as a result of a witness having appeared at the trial but then absconded. The defendant was convicted of drug trafficking. As regards the anonymous witnesses, . .
Cited – Percy v Director of Public Prosecutions QBD 13-Dec-1994
A woman protester repeatedly climbed over the perimeter fencing into a military base.
Held: The defendant had a choice between agreeing to be bound over and going to prison. Her refusal to agree to be bound over had an immediate and obvious . .

Cited by:
Cited – The Chief Constable of Lancashire v Potter Admn 13-Oct-2003
The claimant appealed refusal of an Anti-Social Behaviour order by the magistrates. The respondent was a street prostitute in Preston. The magistrates had declined to aggregate her behaviour with that of others to find that it caused harrassment . .
Cited – In re LU (A Child); In re LB (A Child) (Serious Injury: Standard of Proof); re U (A Child) (Department for Education and Skills intervening) CA 14-May-2004
In each case, the other parent appealed care orders where she had been found to have injured her children. In each case the sole evidence was the injury to the child’s health and expert medical evidence. The cases were referred following the . .
Cited – Regina v Parole Board ex parte Smith, Regina v Parole Board ex parte West (Conjoined Appeals) HL 27-Jan-2005
Each defendant challenged the way he had been treated on revocation of his parole licence, saying he should have been given the opportunity to make oral representations.
Held: The prisoners’ appeals were allowed.
Lord Bingham stated: . .
Cited – Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v Hooper QBD 16-Feb-2005
The police applied to the court for a closure order in respect of premises they said were being used for the sale of Class A drugs. The tenant sought an adjournment, which was granted as were two later applications. On the last hearing, the police . .
Cited – Moat Housing Group-South Ltd v Harris and Another CA 16-Mar-2005
The defendant family was served without notice with an anti-social behaviour order ordering them to leave their home immediately, and making other very substantial restrictions. The evidence in large part related to other people entirely.
Cited – R, Regina (on the Application of) v Durham Constabulary and Another HL 17-Mar-2005
The appellant, a boy aged 15, had been warned as to admitted indecent assaults on girls. He complained that it had not been explained to him that the result would be that his name would be placed on the sex offenders register. The Chief Constable . .
Distinguished – Regina (DJ) v Mental Health Review Tribunal; Regina (AN) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) Admn 11-Apr-2005
Each applicant sought judicial review of the refusal of the tribunal to authorise their release from detention under the 1983 Act, saying that the Tribunal had accepted evidence to a lower standard of proof.
Held: Neither the criminal standard . .
Appealed to – Regina (McCann and Others) v Manchester Crown Court CA 9-Mar-2001
Proceedings applying for an anti-social behaviour order, were properly civil proceedings, with civil standards of evidence, and the Human Rights Act provisions relating to criminal proceedings, were not applicable either. The section included acts . .
Appealed to – Regina v Marylebone Magistrates Court ex parte Andrew Clingham Admn 20-Feb-2001
The council received a report by a housing trust about the behaviour of the defendant, then aged 16, who lived on an estate within the Borough, and after investigating applied for an anti-social behaviour order. Some witness statements contained . .
Cited – Campbell v Hamlet (as executrix of Simon Alexander) PC 25-Apr-2005
(Trinidad and Tobago) The appellant was an attorney. A complaint was made that he had been given money to buy land, but neither had the land been conveyed nor the money returned. The complaint began in 1988, but final speeches were not heard until . .
Cited – AN, Regina (on the Application of) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) and others CA 21-Dec-2005
The appellant was detained under section 37 of the 1983 Act as a mental patient with a restriction under section 41. He sought his release.
Held: The standard of proof in such applications remained the balance of probabilities, but that . .
Cited – Chief Constable of Merseyside Police v Harrison Admn 7-Apr-2006
The occupier of property appealed against a closure order. It was said that it had been used for the sale of drugs. The question was whether the civil standard of proof applied, as it was used in anti-social behaviour orders, when an application was . .
Cited – MB, Re, Secretary of State for the Home Department v MB Admn 12-Apr-2006
The applicant challenged the terms of a non-derogating control order. It was anticipated that unless prevented, he would fight against UK forces in Iraq.
Held: The section allowed the Secretary of State to impose any necessary conditions, but . .
Cited – O v Crown Court at Harrow HL 26-Jul-2006
The claimant said that his continued detention after the custody time limits had expired was an infringement of his human rights. He faced continued detention having been refused bail because of his arrest on a grave charge, having a previous . .
Cited – In re D; Doherty, Re (Northern Ireland); Life Sentence Review Commissioners v D HL 11-Jun-2008
The Sentence Review Commissioners had decided not to order the release of the prisoner, who was serving a life sentence. He had been released on licence from a life sentence and then committed further serious sexual offences against under-age girls . .
Cited – In re B (Children) (Care Proceedings: Standard of Proof) (CAFCASS intervening) HL 11-Jun-2008
Balance of probabilities remains standard of proof
There had been cross allegations of abuse within the family, and concerns by the authorities for the children. The judge had been unable to decide whether the child had been shown to be ‘likely to suffer significant harm’ as a consequence. Having . .
Cited – Birmingham City Council v Shafi and Another CA 30-Oct-2008
The Council appealed a finding that the court did not have jurisdiction to obtain without notice injunctions to control the behaviour of youths said to be creating a disturbance, including restricting their rights to enter certain parts of the city . .
Cited – Langley v Preston Crown Court and others CACD 30-Oct-2008
The defendant sought to appeal against a ‘stand-alone’ anti-social behaviour order. The parties disputed whether an appeal lay. The act created an appeal against the making of an order but in this case it was a renewed order.
Held: In the . .
Cited – In re S-B (Children) (Care proceedings: Standard of proof) SC 14-Dec-2009
A child was found to have bruising consistent with physical abuse. Either or both parents might have caused it, but the judge felt it likely that only one had, that he was unable to decide which, and that they were not so serious that he had to say . .
Cited – Perry v Chief Constable of Humberside Police Admn 18-Oct-2012
The defendant appealed against an anti-social behaviour order. He had been a journalist, and began a private newsletter and campaign alleging amongst other things corruption in the police. He complained that his article 10 rights had been infringed. . .
Cited – Newman v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis Admn 25-Mar-2009
The defendant appealed against the admission of evidence on the respondent’s application for a football bannng order. A witness statement was based on intelligence reports which meant that the witness could not be effectively examined by he defence. . .
Cited – Birmingham City Council v James and Another CA 17-May-2013
The appellant challenged an injunction under the 2009 Act excluding him from parts of Birmingham. He said that it prevented him visiting his mother.
Held: The appeal failed. Moore-Bick LJ said: ‘It was for the judge to decide on the basis of . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Evidence, Crime, Human Rights

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.177450

Johnson v Westminster Magistrates’ Court: Admn 3 Jul 2019

Public Office Misconduct – Acting As not While

The claimant sought judicial review of a decision to issue a summons against him alleging three offences of misconduct in public office. He was said to have issue misleading statements in support of the campaign leading up to the Referendum on leaving Europe. Held Review was granted: ‘Failure to insist upon a high threshold, so as to confine the offence of misconduct in public office within its proper ambit, would place a constraint upon the conduct of public officers in the proper performance of their duties, contrary to the public interest.’
And a conviction would require an unacceptable extension of a common law offence.
‘All the cases to which we have referred and many more we were shown share the common feature of corrupt abuse of public power for personal gain, or gross neglect in failing to comply with the core duties of the office. Such conduct is capable of satisfying the connected tests of breach of duty and the gravity necessary for the offence to be established. The offence will be made out only if the manner in which the specific powers or duties of the office are discharged brings the misconduct within its ambit. Consequently at the time of the alleged misconduct the individual must be acting as, not simply whilst, a public official.’
The claimant said that the prosecution was for political motives and should be treated as vexatious. He was entitled to know why that complaint had been rejected by the district judge. The DJ had failed to give any reason, and ‘we would also have quashed the decision on the basis that the finding that the prosecution was not vexatious was flawed. It is unnecessary for us to decide whether it was Wednesbury unreasonable.’

Rafferty LJ, Supperstone J
[2019] EWHC 1709 (Admin), [2019] WLR(D) 391, [2019] 1 WLR 6238
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Shum Kwok Sher 2002
Final Court of Appeal, Hong Kong. A senior government officer had used his position to provide preferential treatment to a company and its directors to whom he was related. He appealed against his conviction for misconduct in public office.
Cited – Attorney General’s Reference (No 3 of 2003) CACD 7-Apr-2004
Police Officers had been acquitted of misconduct in public office. They had stood by in a police station custody suite as a prisoner lay on the floor and died.
Held: The trial took place before R -v- G which had overruled Caldwell. The . .
Cited – Regina (DPP) v Sunderland MC Admn k 2014
When determining an application for a summons a magistrate must ascertain whether the allegation is of an offence known to law, and if so whether the essential ingredients of the offence are prima facie present
The court observed: ‘[The . .
Cited – Kay and Another, Regina (on The Application of) v Leeds Magistrates’ Court and Another Admn 23-May-2018
Full Duty of Disclosure on Private Prosecutor
The claimant challenged the issue of a summons by the magistrate on the complaint of a private prosecutor.
Held: The challenge succeeded. A private prosecutor and his lawyers had a duty of candour and of full disclosure. The prosecutor having . .
Cited – Mitchell, Regina v CACD 12-Feb-2014
‘Is a paramedic employed by a National Health Service Trust in its ambulance service the holder of a public office so as to be subject to criminal sanction for misconduct?’
Held: The appeal succeeded; he was not: ‘the nature of the duty . .
Cited – Regina v Rimmington; Regina v Goldstein HL 21-Jul-2005
Common Law – Public Nuisance – Extent
The House considered the elements of the common law offence of public nuisance. One defendant faced accusations of having sent racially offensive materials to individuals. The second was accused of sending an envelope including salt to a friend as a . .
Cited – Regina v Huy Vinh Quach 7-May-2010
Supreme Court of Victoria – Court of Appeal – CRIMINAL LAW – Referral of questions of law – Misconduct in public office – Common law offence – Elements of offence – Necessary relationship between public office and alleged conduct for purposes of . .
Cited – People v Santamaria 12-Apr-1991
(California Court of Appeal) Adjournment of criminal trial after jury retired for verdict. . .
Cited – Regina v Clark CACD 4-Apr-2003
The defendant had been involved in a car crash. He drove his car home, and reported the accident only the following day. He appealed against a conviction for attempting to pervert the course of justice, having defeated any possibility of his being . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.639242

Chambers v Director of Public Prosecutions: QBD 27 Jul 2012

The defendant appealed by case stated against his conviction under section 127 of the 2003 Act. Becoming frustrated with its inefficiency he issued a tweet, which was said to have been a threat: ‘Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I am blowing the airport sky high!!’. Airport staff, discovering it felt there was no credible threat, but passed to the Airport police, who agreed, and passed it to the local police. They arrested him, but still saw the tweet as a foolish comment. The Crown Prosecution Service recommended prosecution, and he was convicted.
Held: The appeal succeeded. As to the findings of the Crown Court: ‘the findings do not address the unbroken pattern of evidence to be derived from the responses of those who read or must have read the message before the South Yorkshire Police investigated it. No weight appears to have been given to the lack of urgency which characterised the approach of the authorities to this problem, while the fact that those responsible for security at the airport decided to report it at all, which was treated as a significant feature, rather overlooked that this represented compliance with their duties rather than their alarmed response to the message. ‘
As to the mental element of the crime created, it being one of basic intent: ‘the mental element of the offence is satisfied if the offender is proved to have intended that the message should be of a menacing character (the most serious form of the offence) or alternatively, if he is proved to have been aware of or to have recognised the risk at the time of sending the message that it may create fear or apprehension in any reasonable member of the public who reads or sees it.’
The argument that the Twitter service did not carry messages over a public telecommunications system had properly been rejected by the judge. This was the first time that the court had addressed asked what was a menacing message within the section.
Lord Judge LCJ said: ‘if the person or persons who receive or read it, or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character. In short, a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision, for the very simple reason that the message lacks menace.’ and ‘The 2003 Act did not create some newly minted interference with the first of President Roosevelt’s essential freedoms – freedom of speech and expression. Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by this legislation . . we should perhaps add that for those who have the inclination to use ‘Twitter’ for the purpose, Shakespeare can be quoted unbowdlerised, and with Edgar, at the end of King Lear, they are free to speak not what they ought to say, but what they feel.’

Lord Judge LCJ, Owen, Griffith Williams JJ
[2012] EWHC 2157 (QB)
Bailii
Communications Act 2003 32 127(1) 151
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Collins Admn 23-Jun-2005
The defendant had, over a period of time, telephoned his MP’s office using racially abusive epithets. He was originally charged under the 1984 Act, but then under the 2003 Act. The magistrates found the remarks offensive, but not so grossly . .
Cited – Director of Public Prosecutions v Collins HL 19-Jul-2006
The defendant had made a series of racist and abusive calls to the office of his local MP. The prosecutor appealed a refusal to convict under the 1984 (now the 2003) Act. The defendant had argued that the messages had been offensive, but not grossly . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.463286

Secretary of State for the Home Department v Rehman: HL 11 Oct 2001

The applicant, a Pakistani national had entered the UK to act as a Muslim priest. The Home Secretary was satisfied that he was associated with a Muslim terrorist organisation, and refused indefinite leave to remain. The Home Secretary provided both open and closed statements to the tribunal. The open statement accepted that the organisation was unlikely to indulge in terrorist acts in the UK, but his deportation would be conducive to the public good here. He was said to have encouraged Muslims in the UK to engage in terrorist training. The Commission had held that national security was to be interpreted restrictively, being limited to the national security of the UK. The Court of Appeal applied a wider definition, which the House now approved. When assessing the evidence, the Commission did not have to find the issue proved to a ‘high degree of probability.’ As to deportation, it is to be acknowledged that the security of one nation is now dependent upon that of others. This is allowed for in the Immigration Act 1971, and section 15(3) should not be read disjunctively. ‘The European jurisprudence makes it clear that whether deportation is in the interests of national security is irrelevant to rights under Article 3. If there is a danger of torture, the government must find some other way of dealing with a threat to national security.’
Lord Hoffmann said although ‘cogent evidence is generally required to satisfy a civil tribunal that a person has been fraudulent or behaved in some other reprehensible manner. But the question is always whether the tribunal thinks it more probable than not.’ and ‘[S]ome things are inherently more likely than others. It would need more cogent evidence to satisfy one that the creature seen walking in Regent’s Park was more likely than not to have been a lioness than to be satisfied to the same standard of probability that it was an Alsatian.’

Lord Slynn of Hadley, Lord Steyn Lord Hoffmann Lord Cyde Lord Hutton
Times 15-Oct-2001, Gazette 01-Nov-2001, [2001] UKHL 47, [2003] 1 AC 153, 11 BHRC 413, [2002] ACD 6, [2001] 3 WLR 877, [2002] Imm AR 98, [2002] INLR 92, [2002] 1 All ER 122
House of Lords, Bailii
Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 2(1)(b), Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Procedure) Rules 1998 (1998 No 1881), Immigration Act 1971 115(3)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – The Secretary Of State For The Home Department v Shafiq Ur Rehman CA 23-May-2000
An intention to promote terrorist activity was sufficient to found an order for deportation even though the terrorism may not be directed at any person or property in the UK. Such activity is capable of constituting a threat to national security. . .

Cited by:
Cited – Gillan and Another, Regina (on the Application of) v Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis and Another Admn 31-Oct-2003
The applicants challenged by way of judicial review the way they had been stopped and searched under the Act. They attended a demonstration. The search revealed nothing suspicious. General authorisations for such searches had been issued under the . .
Cited – Regina v H; Regina v C HL 5-Feb-2004
Use of Special Counsel as Last Resort Only
The accused faced charges of conspiring to supply Class A drugs. The prosecution had sought public interest immunity certificates. Special counsel had been appointed by the court to represent the defendants’ interests at the applications.
Cited – G v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Interim Decision) CA 9-Mar-2004
A certificate had been granted by the Home Secretary that the applicant was suspected of terrorism, and he had accordingly been detained under special procedures. When his case had come before the Special Immigration Appeal Tribunal, they had . .
Cited – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, Mahmoud Abu Rideh Jamal Ajouaou v Secretary of State for the Home Department CA 11-Aug-2004
The claimants had each been detained without trial for more than two years, being held as suspected terrorists. They were free leave to return to their own countries, but they feared for their lives if returned. They complained that the evidence . .
Appealed to – The Secretary Of State For The Home Department v Shafiq Ur Rehman CA 23-May-2000
An intention to promote terrorist activity was sufficient to found an order for deportation even though the terrorism may not be directed at any person or property in the UK. Such activity is capable of constituting a threat to national security. . .
Cited – Roberts v Parole Board CA 28-Jul-2004
The discretionary life-prisoner faced a parole board. The Secretary of State wished to present evidence, but wanted the witness to be protected. The Parole Board appointed special counsel to hear the evidence on behalf of the prisoner on terms that . .
Cited – A v Secretary of State for the Home Department, and X v Secretary of State for the Home Department HL 16-Dec-2004
The applicants had been imprisoned and held without trial, being suspected of international terrorism. No criminal charges were intended to be brought. They were foreigners and free to return home if they wished, but feared for their lives if they . .
Distinguished – Regina (DJ) v Mental Health Review Tribunal; Regina (AN) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) Admn 11-Apr-2005
Each applicant sought judicial review of the refusal of the tribunal to authorise their release from detention under the 1983 Act, saying that the Tribunal had accepted evidence to a lower standard of proof.
Held: Neither the criminal standard . .
Cited – McClean, Re HL 7-Jul-2005
The appellant was serving a life sentence for terrorist offences. He complained that he should have been released under the 1998 Act. It was said he would be a danger to the public if released. On pre-release home leave he was involved in a . .
Cited – Roberts v Parole Board HL 7-Jul-2005
Balancing Rights of Prisoner and Society
The appellant had been convicted of the murder of three police officers in 1966. His tariff of thirty years had now long expired. He complained that material put before the Parole Board reviewing has case had not been disclosed to him.
Held: . .
Cited – AN, Regina (on the Application of) v Mental Health Review Tribunal (Northern Region) and others CA 21-Dec-2005
The appellant was detained under section 37 of the 1983 Act as a mental patient with a restriction under section 41. He sought his release.
Held: The standard of proof in such applications remained the balance of probabilities, but that . .
Cited – In re D; Doherty, Re (Northern Ireland); Life Sentence Review Commissioners v D HL 11-Jun-2008
The Sentence Review Commissioners had decided not to order the release of the prisoner, who was serving a life sentence. He had been released on licence from a life sentence and then committed further serious sexual offences against under-age girls . .
Cited – Mohamed, Regina (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (No 4) Admn 4-Feb-2009
In an earlier judgment, redactions had been made relating to reports by the US government of its treatment of the claimant when held by them at Guantanamo bay. The claimant said he had been tortured and sought the documents to support his defence of . .
Cited – Al Rawi and Others v The Security Service and Others QBD 18-Nov-2009
The claimants sought damages from the defendants saying that they had been held and ill treated at various detention centres by foreign authorities, but with the involvement of the defendants. The defendants sought to bring evidence before the court . .
Cited – In re S-B (Children) (Care proceedings: Standard of proof) SC 14-Dec-2009
A child was found to have bruising consistent with physical abuse. Either or both parents might have caused it, but the judge felt it likely that only one had, that he was unable to decide which, and that they were not so serious that he had to say . .
Cited – Al Rawi and Others v The Security Service and Others CA 4-May-2010
Each claimant had been captured and mistreated by the US government, and claimed the involvement in and responsibility for that mistreatment by the respondents. The court was asked whether a court in England and Wales, in the absence of statutory . .
Cited – The Solicitor for the Affairs of HM Treasury v Doveton and Another ChD 13-Nov-2008
The claimant requested the revocation of a grant of probate to the defendant. They had suspicions about the will propounded and lodged a caveat which was warned off and the grant completed. In breach of court orders, the defendant had transferred . .
Cited – Al Rawi and Others v The Security Service and Others SC 13-Jul-2011
The claimant pursued a civil claim for damages, alleging complicity of the respondent in his torture whilst in the custody of foreign powers. The respondent sought that certain materials be available to the court alone and not to the claimant or the . .
Cited – Gale and Another v Serious Organised Crime Agency SC 26-Oct-2011
Civil recovery orders had been made against the applicant. He had been accused and acquitted of drug trafficking allegations in Europe, but the judge had been persuaded that he had no proper explanation for the accumulation of his wealth, and had . .
Cited – Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, and Others, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 12-Nov-2014
The claimant had supported the grant of a visa to a woman in order to speak to members of Parliament who was de facto leader of an Iranian organsation which had in the past supported terrorism and had been proscribed in the UK, but that proscription . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Immigration, Crime

Leading Case

Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.166570