‘The law is very clear. The court of trial possesses a discretion to allow a defendant to change his or her plea of Guilty to one of Not Guilty at any time before sentence even though the plea may be said to be unequivocal: see the decision of this court in Dodd (1981) 74 Crim App R (s) 50. The discretion must of course be exercised judicially. There must be some objective basis for allowing the plea to be changed. Some of the cases however, show that the discretion is, generally speaking, exercised sparingly in the defendant’s favour. In Cantor [1991] Crim LR 481 it was made plain that this court would not lay down any rules of practice concerning such changes of plea. It was for trial judges to decide how to respond to an application for that to be done.’
Judges:
Law LJ
Citations:
[2002] EWCA Crim 3020
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Mason CACD 18-Nov-2004
The defendant had entered a plea of guilty to a charge of manslaughter, but now sought to vacate that plea. There had been a fight after a wedding reception. The defendant was said to have joined in a multi-handed attack on the victim. The defendant . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.219683