In this Appeal a judge had made inappropriate interruptions and had clearly “cross-examined” a defendant during a trial, but the CA held that the departure from good practice was not so gross,…
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Solicitor Advocate specialising in Miscarriage of Justice Cases and Defending Historical Abuse Allegations , writes on Criminal Justice issues . Involved in the quashing of a significant number of convictions . Currently a member of the Law Society Council and various committees including the Criminal Law Committee
R. v Timmis (Paul Anthony)[2021] EWCA Crim 159 – Bad Character Previous acquittals
This permission to appeal case dealt with the interesting issue of what to do with the evidence of acquittals before a previous jury. Clearly a Defendant cannot be re-tried for the original…
Hamilton v Post Office[2021] EWCA Crim 21 – No right to argue abuse of process on referral but fairness dictated it should be allowed
This was a Referral in relation to post office workers who had been convicted of dishonesty broadly under circumstances where post office accounting software and procedures might have falsely reported omissions that…
R v SL 2021] EWCA Crim 178 – Reminding of the Jury of ABE errors do not necessarily render a conviction unsafe
In a Sexual Offence Case a Jury wanted a reminder of aspects of the ABE evidence. This was properly done as required in Open Court and the Judge proceeded to repeat verbatim…
R. v BTT[2021] EWCA Crim 4 – Criminal Exploitation and inconsistent accounts
This was a leave to appeal case but builds upon the interesting issues relating to criminal exploitation and the case of DPP v M recently reported in this blog. It was taken…
R. (on the application of Financial Conduct Authority) v Abdel-Malek – Not the role of the Court of assess the “Feel of a Trial “
This was an appeal in a complex fraud case, the Court carefully assessed the fresh evidence to determine whether this would have an impact on the safety of the conviction but declined…
DPP v M [2020] EWHC 3422 (Admin) – Expert Evidence Criminal Exploitation
A conclusive grounds decision made by the Single Competent Authority appointed under the National Referral Mechanism Reform Programme was admissible as evidence in criminal proceedings in determining whether a defendant was a…
R. v Ferris (Chad Alfred)[2020] NICA 60 – Fresh Evidence in Sentence Appeals
This case dealt with the more unusual use of fresh evidence – in an appeal on sentence. In particular an offender sought to rely on the fact that Four years had passed…
Jeremy Bamber – The story yet to be told ?
In the history of criminal convictions in the modern era, there remains one mystifying tragedy and story which still seems to catch the public imagination namely the case almost universally colloquially referred…
R v Porch [2020 ] EWCA Crim 1633 – Failure to adduce phone evidence renders conviction unsafe – the crown do not need to be at fault
In this interesting case the Court of Appeal allowed an extension of 1164 days to admit fresh evidence regarding phone records which due to various circumstances were not available at the time…