It is not in the interests of justice for the prosecution to be given a second chance to make good deficiencies in its case. The Board gave guidance on the considerations relevant to ordering a new trial: ‘. . the interest of justice that is served by the power to order a new trial is the interest of the public … that those persons who are guilty of serious crimes should be brought to justice and not escape it merely because of some technical blunder by the judge in the conduct of the trial or in his summing up to the jury.’ Furthermore ‘. . it is not necessarily a condition precedent to the ordering of a new trial that the Court of Appeal should be satisfied of the probability that it will result in a conviction. There may be cases where, even though the Court of Appeal considers that upon a fresh trial an acquittal is on balance more likely than a conviction, ‘It is in the interest of the public, the complainant, and the [defendant] himself that the question of guilt or otherwise be determined finally by the verdict of a jury, and not left as something which must remain undecided by reason of a defect in legal machinery.’ This was said by the Full Court of Hong Kong when ordering a new trial in Ng Yuk-kin v The Crown (1955) 39 HKLR 49, 60. That was a case of rape, but in their Lordships’ view it states a consideration that may be of wider application.’
Judges:
Lord Diplock
Citations:
[1980] AC 343
Jurisdiction:
Commonwealth
Cited by:
Cited – Michael Pringle v The Queen PC 27-Jan-2003
PC (Jamaica) The court considered the way in which statistical conclusions drawn from DNA evidence had been presented to the jury. The judge had fallen into the ‘Prosecutor’s Fallacy.’ Also the court had relied . .
Cited – Boodram v The State PC 10-Apr-2001
(Trinidad and Tobago) On a retrial, the defendant’s counsel only became aware that there had been an earlier trial late in the proceedings, and, when he became aware of it, he did not try to obtain the transcript of the first trial in order to . .
Cited – AG for the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia v Steinhoff PC 19-Jul-2005
(Akrotiri and Dhekelia) The defendant had appealed convictions for rape and attempted rape. He had criticised the arrangements for protecting the complainant when giving evidence, which had not complied with the 1999 Act. His appeal succeeded in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 25 November 2022; Ref: scu.195989