At the preparatory hearing the defendants sought an order that the trial be stayed as an abuse of process on the grounds of unjustifiable delay. Held : It was refused. ‘In our judgment the words of sections 7, 8 and 9 themselves plainly demonstrate the object of Parliament in creating the preparatory hearing. It must have been, according to the language used, we think, the intention of parliament in introducing this novel procedure – novel in that it has not been introduced in respect of any other kind of criminal trial – to ensure that it be used for a specific purpose or purposes. It deliberately so enacted, in our view, the provisions of subsection (1) of section 7 in order to make it clear that it was creating this new and very valuable procedure for the specified purposes and no other. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that Parliament can possibly, by using the clear words which they have used in sections 7 and 9, to allow a preparatory hearing to commence for a certain specified purpose have intended to permit, once a preparatory hearing for that purpose is in being, argument to range around all manner of issues which cannot be said to relate to any of the specified purposes.’
Judges:
Watkins LJ
Citations:
[1990] 91 Cr App R 55
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Followed – Regina v Moore CACD 5-Feb-1991
The court considered whether to quash a count of theft: ‘The fact that a possible incidental effect of the purposes of the application does find itself within those sub-provisions (a) to (d) is not one of the purposes of those provisions. It is the . .
Cited – Regina v Van Hoogstraten CACD 12-Dec-2003
The prosecution appealed against the refusal of the crown court to remit the case for retrial.
Held: The court had no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal against this ruling because it was not within the ambit of section 29(2) of the 1996 Act. . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Crime
Updated: 27 August 2022; Ref: scu.188774