Two police officers were being brought to trial, charged with assault occasioning bodily harm. They applied to the trial judge for an order directing the prosecution to inform the defence whether any members of the jury panel had criminal convictions, and if so, to give details. The trial judge made the order. The court considered a request from the Chief Constable to be allowed to vet a jury to be empanelled to hear a case against two police officers.
Held: Lord Denning MR (dissenting iin part) said that that the word ‘related’ can mean ‘closely related to’, or indirectly or distantly related to, or somewhere in between.
When the Crown Court was exercising the former jurisdiction of the Assize Courts, it (like the Assize Courts) could not be judicially reviewed.
Shaw LJ said: ‘It needs no elaborate argument to demonstrate that this user of such special knowledge would be an abuse as being contrary to the spirit and principle of jury service. It is possible to conceive of very special cases where the protection of the interests of the public at large demands that such knowledge should be sought and used. Even then it should not be sought or used without the sanction of the Attorney-General who is ultimately responsible for the conduct of prosecutions by way of indictment.’
Brondon LJ said: ‘First, I have serious doubt whether there should be any jury vetting at all, either by the prosecution or the defence. Secondly, if jury vetting is to be permitted to the prosecution in certain categories of cases, however and by whomsoever those categories may be defined, it hardly seems just that it should not be permitted to the defence in any categories of cases at all.’
As to the random nature of a jury, Lord Denning MR said: ‘Our philosophy is that the jury should be selected at random-from a panel of persons who are nominated at random. We believe that 12 persons selected at random are likely to be a cross-section of the people as a whole-and thus represent the views of the common man . . The parties must take them as they come.’
Judges:
Lord Denning MR, Shaw and Brandon LJJ
Citations:
[1980] Cr App R 19, [1980] QB 530, [1980] 2 All ER 444, [1980] 2 WLR 892
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Applied – Regina v Ford CACD 1989
The appellant challenged the judge’s refusal to accede to an application to swear in a multi-racial jury.
Held: The judge was right in coming to the conclusion that he should not order a multi-racial jury to be empanelled. He had no power to . .
Cited – Regina v Tarrant CACD 18-Dec-1997
At a first trial it was suspected that a juror had been approached, and a retrial was ordered. The prosecutor applied to have the trial moved out of the area to avoid a repetition, but the judge directed instead that a jury protrection order be . .
Cited – Guardian News and Media Ltd, Regina (on The Application of) v City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court and Another CA 25-Oct-2011
The claimant newspaper sought to appeal against a refusal by the respondent to disclose papers filed in a case before it. The court considered whether it had jurisdiction to hear an appeal.
Held: Under the 1981 Act no appeal would lie if the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.450341