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.
Held: The magistrates should have proceeded by admitting the evidence, and an appeal court would have been better able to give the advice now sought. However: ‘ the justices were plainly correct to proceed on the basis that there are no directly applicable disclosure requirements in relation to an application for a football banning order under section 14B. These are civil proceedings, and the rules relating to disclosure of unused material in criminal proceedings do not apply to them. The disclosure provisions of the Civil Procedure Rules do not apply to magistrates’ courts, as was observed in Cleary. There are specific statutory provisions and rules governing the admission of hearsay evidence, but there are none laying down any particular disclosure regime.
In those circumstances, as it seems to me, the justices were correct to approach the matter by reference to the imperative of ensuring fairness in the proceedings before them, that is to say by considering whether the evidence that the Commissioner sought to rely on which was in principle admissible was evidence that could fairly be admitted in the absence of disclosure of underlying material: in particular, whether it was unfair for the first witness statement of PC Davies to be admitted without disclosure of the source material on which it was based, and whether it was unfair for the compilation disc, with the accompanying witness statement, to be admitted without disclosure of the full CCTV videos from which the compilation clips were drawn.’
Judges:
Richards LJ, Teare J
Citations:
[2009] EWHC 1642 (Admin)
Links:
Statutes:
Football Spectators Act 1989 14B 14C
Citing:
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 – 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 – 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 . .
Cited – Cleary, Regina (on the Application of) v Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court and others Admn 26-Jul-2006
The police sought the closure of premises under an anti-social behaviour order.
Held: A body seeking such an order had an obligation to serve written copies of the evidence upon which they wished to rely on the proposed respondent. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Evidence, Magistrates
Updated: 30 July 2022; Ref: scu.347711
