Recent Cases
Harrassing at Home
Fitness to plead
Expert Evidence
Harrassment can occur within the Harrassing party's own vicinity - The Court so held in James v Crown Prosecution Service 4.11.09
In this case a man was convicted of harrassing a Social Services manager who was returning his own calls
he requirement under the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 s.4(6) that the court should not make a determination regarding the question of fitness to plead except on the evidence of two or more registered medical practitioners, at least one of whom had to be duly approved by the relevant body, was confined to a determination of unfitness to plead and not of fitness to plead.
A link between an Expert and the party intending to call them would never mean that evidence should be ruled inadmissable .
It was a matter of weight depending on the circumstances of the case
Leo Sawrij Ltd v North Cumbria Magistrates Court
Prosecution beware of adjournment applications
Alternative Verdicts
R. v Tierney (Steven Joseph) 2009 WL 3447848
The House of Lords decision in R. v Coutts required a new approach by the Court to alternative verdicts and the failure in the instant case to leave an alternative of common assault rendered the conviction unsafe .
Not Giving Evidence maybe fatal in diminished case
An application to adjourn a trial would be refused unless it was necessary and just. The prosecution was not to think that it would always be allowed at least one adjournment of a trial, and could not rely on its own failures as good and compelling reasons for an adjournment. Where magistrates had wrongly ordered a defendant's trial to be adjourned because prosecution witnesses had failed to attend, that decision was quashed and the defendant acquitted.
Visuaratnam v Brent Magistrates' Court
29th October 2009
Delay to Solicitor cases reaffirmed
In Chalupa v CPS the DC has agian confirmed that delay to a solcitor will not be a good reason to prevent the timely carrying out of the breathalyser procedure .
The Court would only intervene in an exceptional case .
A judge had been entitled to direct a jury pursuant to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 s.35 where a defendant, who was suffering from Alcohol Dependency Syndrome when he killed his partner, had not given evidence at trial, as there were matters on which he could have given evidence which were relevant to the jury's consideration of the degree of impairment of his mental responsibility
R v Adrian Barry [ 2010 ]
Risk of Giving Evidence
In Tabbakh [2009] EWCA Crim 464 the Court of Appeal has recognised the dangers and consequences of a defendant giving evidence . The case stresses when in such circumstances it would be appropriate to make an adverse inference .
Failure to disclose may not be enough
Failure to disclose convictions of a prosecution witness would not arguably render the conviction unsafe unless it might have affected the Juries deliberations
Allison v HM Advocate
Jordans Crime Blog
