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These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.  














Criminal Evidence - From: 1970 To: 1979

This page lists 20 cases, and was prepared on 21 May 2019.

 
Hall v Regina (1970) 55 Cr App 108
1970
PC
Lord Diplock
Criminal Evidence
The court asked as to the modern application of the dicta in Christie with regard to the admissibility of false statements made in the presence of a defendant but uncontradicted by him. In this case there had been no positive act to adopt the lie. Held: The silence was not evidence against the defendant: "a person is entitled to refrain from answering a question put to him for the purpose of discovering whether he has committed a criminal offence. A fortiori he is under no obligation to comment when he is informed that someone else has accused him of an offence. It may be that in very exceptional circumstances an inference may be drawn from a failure to give an explanation or disclaimer, but in their Lordship's view silence alone on being informed by a police officer that someone else has made an accusation against him cannot give rise to an inference that the person to whom this information is communicated accepts the truth of the accusation." and "The caution merely serves to remind the accused of a right which he already possesses at common law. The fact that in a particular case he has not been reminded of it is no ground for inferring that his silence was not in the exercise of that right, but that was an acknowledgement of the truth of the accusation."
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Regina v Oyesiku; CACD 1971 - (1971) 56 Cr App R 240

 
 Wright v Wenlock; 1971 - [1971] RTR 228; [1972] CLR 49

 
 Ratten v The Queen; PC 1-Jul-1971 - [1972] 2 AC 378; [1971] UKPC 23; [1971] 3 All ER 801; (1972) 56 Cr App R 18; [1971] 3 WLR 930

 
 Director of Public Prosecutions v Hester; CACD 1972 - [1972] CLY 631
 
Regina v Stamford [1972] 2 QB 391
1972


Criminal Evidence
The test of whether an article is indecent is an objective one. Words such as "insulting", "serious" or "obscene", involve value judgments of which jurors are the arbiters par excellence without expert evidence.
1 Citers


 
Regina v Boardman [1975] AC 421; [1974] 3 All ER 887; (1975) 60 Cr App R 165; [1974] 3 WLR 673; 60 CR A131
1974
HL
Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, Lord Cross of Chelsea, Lord Salmon
Criminal Evidence
The defendant appealed the admission of similar fact evidence against him. Acts of buggery were alleged by a schoolmaster with boys in which the accused was the passive partner. Held: In order to be admissible similar facts must bear a striking similarity to the facts of the case currently before the court.
Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest said: The test was whether it was "a really material bearing on the issues to be decided" and it must be such that to exclude the evidence would be "an affront to common sense"
Lord Wilberforce said: There must be "a strong degree of probative force" based on the "striking similarity" of the material facts. "evidence which would point so strongly to his guilt that only an ultra-cautious jury, if they accepted it as true, would acquit in face of it."
Lord Cross of Chelsea said: It must be "evidence which would point so strongly to his guilt that only an ultra-cautious jury, if they accepted it as true, would acquit in face of it."
Lord Salmon said: "the similarity would have to be so unique or striking that common sense makes it inexplicable on the basis of coincidence."
Lord Hailsham said: "The "striking resemblances" or "unusual features" or whatever phrase is considerable appropriate, to ignore which would affront common sense, may either be in the objective facts . . or may constitute a striking similarity in the accounts by witnesses of disputed transaction. For instance, while it would certainly not be enough to identify the culprit in a series of burglaries that he climbed in through a ground floor window, the fact that he left the same humorous limerick on the walls of the sitting room, are an esoteric symbol written in lipstick on the mirror, might well be enough."
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Regina v Turner (Terence) [1975] QB 834; (1974) 60 Cr App R 80; [1975] 1 All ER 70; [1975] 2 WLR 56
1974
CACD
Lawton LJ
Evidence, Criminal Evidence
The defendant appealed against his conviction for murder. He admitted that he had killed his girlfriend with a hammer, but sought to bring psychiatric evidence that he was susceptible to provocation. Held: The law jealously guards the role of the jury, or the court where it is the trier of the facts, as the judge of human nature, of the behaviour of normal people and of situations which are within the experience of ordinary persons or are capable of being understood by them
Expert medical evidence based upon observation of a witness can only be admitted if that evidence showed a recognised mental illness.

Lawton LJ said: "An expert's opinion is admissible to furnish the court with scientific information which is likely to be outside the experience and knowledge of a judge or jury. If on the proven facts a judge or jury can form their own conclusions without help, then the opinion of an expert is unnecessary. In such a case, if it is just out of the scientific jargon, it may make judgment more difficult. The fact that an expert witness has impressive scientific qualifications does not by that fact alone make his opinion on matters of human nature and behaviour within the limits of normality any more helpful than that of the jurors themselves . . Jurors did not need psychiatrists to tell them how ordinary folk who are not suffering from any mental illness are likely to react to the stresses and strains of life." and "A man's personality and mental make-up do have a bearing upon his conduct. A quick-tempered man will react more aggressively to an unpleasing situation than a placid one. Anyone having a florid imagination or a tendency to exaggerate is less likely to be a reliable witness than one who is precise and careful. These are matters of ordinary human experience. Opinions from knowledgeable persons about a man's personality and mental make-up play a part in many human judgments."
. . And "Before a court can assess the value of an opinion it must know the facts upon which it is based. If the expert has been misinformed about the facts or has taken irrelevant facts into consideration or has omitted to consider relevant ones, the opinion is likely to be valueless."
It is a well recognised rule of evidence that "in general evidence can be called to impugn the credibility of witnesses but not led in chief to bolster it up"
1 Citers



 
 Attorney General for Northern Ireland's Reference no 1 of 1975; HL 1975 - [1975] AC 105

 
 Regina v Chandler; CACD 1975 - (1975) 63 Cr App R 1

 
 Regina v Turner (Bryan); CACD 1975 - (1975) 61 Cr App R 67
 
Regina v Mustafa (1976) 65 Cr App R 26
1976


Criminal Evidence

1 Citers


 
Regina v Kershberg [1976] RTR 526
1976
CACD

Road Traffic, Criminal Evidence
An appropriately qualified member of staff at a forensic laboratory may give expert evidence as to results found by a co-worker.


 
 Parkes v Regina; PC 1976 - (1976) 64 Cr App R 25

 
 Regina v Turnbull and Another etc; CCA 9-Jun-1976 - [1976] 3 WLR 445; [1977] QB 224; (1976) 63 CAR 132; [1976] 3 All ER 549
 
Regina v Neale [1977] 65 Cr App R 304
1977
CACD
Scarman LJ
Crime, Criminal Evidence
Neale and Burr were jointly charged with arson and manslaughter. N wanted to adduce evidence, either by cross-examining prosecution witnesses or leading evidence himself, that B had admitted that he had started fires himself on four other occasions. Held: The evidence was irrelevant and therefore inadmissible. "The view that he took was that this was evidence of propensity or disposition only, and contained nothing which bore upon the defence which was that the applicant was elsewhere and did not therefore do it. We have come to the conclusion that the learned judge was right and that it really is, in the circumstances of this case, a non sequitur to deduce from the existence of a propensity in Burr to raise fires that Neale was not there or participating when this fire, which did the damage and caused the death, was raised. Mr Hillman really revealed or exposed the logical fallacy in his argument, when in the course of a succinct and extremely well developed submission he submitted that evidence of Burr's propensity to commit wanton and unaided arson was needed in order to support the defence that the applicant Neale was not there at the time the fire was raised. In our judgment this is a non sequitur." and "There is a clear general principle, that, in general, evidence of propensity to commit a crime is not evidence that the man with that propensity committed the crime on the particular occasion, but of course in the present case the logical gap is greater. Hence the relevance of the evidence has to be borne in mind by reference to the defence, which was, 'I was not there.'"A judge has no discretionary power at the request of one accused to exclude relevant evidence tending to support the defence of another accused."
1 Citers


 
Regina v Gilbert (1977) 66 Cr App R 237
1977
CACD
Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Scarman and Jupp J
Criminal Evidence
The defendant on a charge of murder had claimed at trial that he had acted in self-defence. He had not said anything of this sort in his police statement under caution. The trial judge had invited the jury, in the exercise of their common sense, to consider whether it was remarkable that the defendant had said nothing about self-defence. Held: Dilhorne "As the law now stands, although it may appear obvious to the jury in the exercise of their common sense that an innocent man would speak and not be silent, they must be told that they must not draw the inference of guilt from his silence." and "It is in our opinion now clearly established by decisions of the Court of Appeal and of the Court of Criminal Appeal that to invite a jury to form an adverse opinion against an accused on account of his exercise of his right to silence is a misdirection."
1 Citers


 
Regina v Johanssen [1978] CLY 495
1978
CACD

Criminal Evidence

1 Citers


 
Regina v Virgo (1978) 67 Cr App R 323
1978
CACD
Geoffrey Lane LJ
Criminal Evidence
The defendant appealed against his conviction for conspiracy and corrupt acceptance of bribes. One of the witnesses for the prosecution was a person engaged in pornography and who had allegedly bribed the defendant. The Court considered the evidential status of diary entries used by a witness to refresh his memory of dates and events in which he was involved. The diary was admitted into evidence without objection. Held: Those entries were not capable of amounting to corroboration of the evidence of the witness who was an accomplice of the accused. Geoffrey Lane LJ said that the nature of the diary entries was such that if the jury thought they were genuine they might show a degree of consistency in the witness – much in the way that a prompt complaint by a victim of sexual assault might be used by a jury as bolstering the complainant’s evidence, but the entries could not be used as evidence of the truth of their contents: "There is always a danger in circumstances such as these when attention has been focused on a particular document for a long period of time, and when the document has been subjected to a minute and line by line analysis as these diaries were that the document will achieve an importance which it does not warrant. It was most important in this case that the status of these diaries should be clearly understood throughout the trial and particularly at the end of the trial when the learned judge came to sum up the matter to the jury . . Those diaries were never more, at best, than a means whereby Humphreys might be able to give accurate dates and accurate chapter and verse for the incidents in respect of which he was giving evidence. They were never more than documents prepared by Humphreys and Humphreys was a self-confessed dealer in pornography. He was an accomplice and he was, on any view, a highly unsavoury character in many other ways. His evidence, par excellence, required corroboration."
1 Citers


 
Malone v Commissioner of the Police for the Metropolis (No 2) [1979] CLY 2098; [1979] 1 Ch 344; [1980] QB 49; [1979] 2 All ER 620; [1979] EWHC 2 (Ch)
28 Feb 1979
ChD
Sir Robert Megarry VC
Human Rights, Police, Criminal Evidence
The court considered the lawfulness of telephone tapping. The issue arose following a trial in which the prosecution had admitted the interception of the plaintiff's telephone conversations under a warrant issued by the Secretary of State. The plaintiff claimed that the interception had been and was unlawful. Held: Although he dismissed the plaintiff's claim, the Vice Chancellor said "Any regulation of so complex a matter as telephone tapping is essentially a matter for Parliament, not the courts . . this case seems to me to make it plain that telephone tapping is a subject which cries out for legislation."
"I am not unduly troubled by the absence of English authority: there has to be a first time for everything, and if the principles of English law, and not least analogies from the existing rules, together with the requirements of justice and common sense, pointed firmly to such a right existing, then I think the court should not be deterred from recognising the right. On the other hand, it is no function of the courts to legislate in a new field. The extension of the existing laws and principles is one thing, the creation of an altogether new right is another."
"I readily accept that if the question before me were one of construing a statute enacted with the purpose of giving effect to obligations imposed by the Convention, the court would readily seek to construe the legislation in a way that would effectuate the Convention rather than frustrate it. However, no relevant legislation of that sort is in existence. It seems to me that where Parliament has abstained from legislating on a point that is plainly suitable for legislation, it is indeed difficult for the court to lay down new rules of common law or equity that will carry out the Crown's treaty obligations, or to discover for the first time that such rules have always existed."
European Convention on Human Rights
1 Citers

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