swarb.co.uk - law index
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: 1991 To: 1991
This page lists 6 cases, and was prepared on 21 May 2019.
Regina v Browning (1991) 94 Cr App R 109
1991
CACD
Glidewell LJ
Criminal Evidence
A witness by the name of Hughes said that he was overtaken at considerable speed by a Renault 25 with a registration number beginning C7. Held: The peculiar risks of mistaken facial identification do not apply to the same extent to evidence of sightings of other objects, such as a motor car.
Glidewell LJ said: "Mr. Griffith Williams submits that a Turnbull type direction should have been given to the jury as regards both the car and the man. As to the car, unlike a human being, the appearance of a car remains constant unless it is deliberately altered by having its colour changed or by having some pieces added to it. Save for such deliberate alteration, it cannot in its nature change shape or colour or size. A human being's facial expression alters constantly and his bodily position and appearance alters constantly. Of course, a human being's dress alters and his style of hair may alter from time to time. Identifying a particular car, in our view, depends upon first, the witness being sufficiently knowledgeable about makes of cars to be able clearly to distinguish one from another - some people can, some cannot; secondly, being able to recollect the make and the colour of the car he has seen; and thirdly, being able to observe and then recollect the most important of the individual distinguishing features which every car carries with it, that is to say its registration number. As to this, the judge said at p. 23 in relation to Mr. Hughes:
'He saw that it was a C registered car and as I told you in what I was saying before I had our break, he made one statement, then he made another statement, and was asked to go down to Worcester, Hindlip Hall, in order to see if he could identify the car and he told you that on his way down he remembered the 7. He had thought and thought about it, and you may remember that a number of witnesses appeared to be being criticised for the fact that in their initial statement they did not put everything that they had later come to remember. You are required to bring your common sense into the jury box, as I am sure you have, and you will judge that suggestion according to its merits. If you really put your thinking cap on and you perhaps remember more than when you first thought about it, of course the danger the other way is that you may begin to think that you remember things that did not happen at all. You judge that criticism for what it may be worth.'
In our view that was a perfectly proper reminder to the jury. It is our judgment that a Turnbull direction as such is not needed in relation to a motor car. What is necessary is to do what the judge here did: to draw the jury's attention in relation to each witness, first of all, to the opportunity which the witness had to identify the car. The judge did that in relation to a number of the witnesses. He reminded the jury that Mr. Farrell was travelling at about 80 miles an hour, but he put it more graphically, 102 feet a second, in the summing-up. He reminded the jury that Mr. Marsh had said that he only had a fleeting glance. Secondly, he should draw the jury's attention to a witness's apparent ability or inability to distinguish between makes of cars and the characteristics of cars. Thirdly, he should make the point, which the judge made in the passage to which I have just referred, that the jury must decide how far a witness is genuinely recollecting what he saw and how far his mind has invented or has absorbed information from somewhere else and then transmuted that into making him think that he has recollected something that he has not actually recollected at all. In our view the judge in his comments to the jury fulfilled the duty upon him to warn them properly in respect of identifying motor cars."
1 Cites
1 Citers
Henriques v The Queen [1991] 1 WLR 242
1991
PC
Criminal Evidence
1 Citers
Lam Chi-ming v The Queen; PC 1991 - [1991] 2 AC 212
Director of Public Prosecutions v P; HL 1991 - [1991] 93 Crim App R 267; [1991] 2 AC 447; [1991] 3 All ER 337; [1991] 3 WLR 161
Regina v Richardson Unreported, 09 May 1991
9 May 1991
CACD
McCowan LJ
Criminal Evidence
The applicant had given no evidence at trial and agreed that witnesses who might have assisted him should not be called. He had not been honest with his legal representatives at trial. Held: McCowan LJ said: "On the one hand, this is a case of a man who has advanced an admittedly lying defence and it having failed now wants to try another one. The court is extremely reluctant to lend any assistance to that sort of purpose. Indeed it could only be in an exceptional case that it would do so. On the other hand, we have to consider whether there is a risk that by reason of his own stupid lies a miscarriage of justice may have occurred . ." The court decided to receive the fresh evidence and thus allow the application. In the event a retrial was ordered.
1 Citers
Regina v Silcot, Raghip and others Times, 09 December 1991
9 Dec 1991
CACD
Criminal Evidence
There can be an increased readiness of the courts to accept expert evidence as to the defendant's mental capacity where the issue is as to the admissibility of a confession statement.
1 Citers
