Bad Character Evidence and Potential Satellite Litigation
| Published date | 01 April 2013 |
| Author | Brian Brewis,Adam Jackson,Michael Stockdale |
| DOI | 10.1350/1740-5580-77.2.110 |
| Date | 01 April 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
(ii) that the means of protection adopted or proposed to be adopted were
or would be reasonable having regard to all the circumstances.
Section 5(3) adds that ‘[f]or the purposes of this section it is immaterial
whether a belief is justified or not if it is honestly held’.
Could S have availed himself of this defence, at least to the charges of
criminal damage to the remote controls? The first issue would be to
identify which ‘property’ S may have believed was in immediate need of
protection. Section 5(2)(b) does not operate to provide an excuse to
those who cause property damage in order to protect people (R v Baker
and Wilkins [1997] Crim LR 497), but S may have believed that the
damage to the remote controls was necessary to protect the aircraft. Of
course, that would mean that the property he damaged, and the prop-
erty that he believed that he was protecting, were one and the same (i.e.
the aircraft), although that is not ruled out by the statute. However, if it
were deemed necessary to identify some other property than the aircraft,
then the passengers’ luggage should suffice.
The more problematic issue is S’s belief. The Court of Appeal has
decided that the ‘belief’ referred to in s. 5 need only be ‘honest’ as
opposed to reasonable (R v Denton [1981] 1 WLR 1446); and the Divi-
sional Court has held that it could even be a drunken belief (Jaggard v
Dickinson [1981] QB 527). But could it be a psychotic belief? The answer,
it is submitted, is ‘no’. For public policy reasons, an accused must not be
able to rely upon a full defence by pleading a psychotic belief. The case
law on self-defence applies here by way of analogy. As Rose LJ stated in
R v Canns [2005] EWCA Crim 2264 at [19], quoting the trial judge in
that case, ‘It cannot be right that the more psychotic a defendant may be
the greater his chances of acquittal, because of his genuine delusions’.
Tony Storey
Bad Character Evidence and Potential Satellite Litigation
R vDizaei (Jamshid Ali) [2013] EWCA Crim 88
Keywords Bad character; Admissibility; Satellite litigation; Probative
value; Unproven allegations
The appellant was convicted for misconduct in a public office and
perverting the course of justice. This was a retrial resulting from a
successful appeal against his original conviction in February 2010 (see
[2011] EWCA Crim 1174). The appellant (D) was a very senior ranked
police officer in the Metropolitan Police having attained the rank of
Commander at the time when events giving rise to the charges occurred
in 2008. It was alleged that the appellant had abused his power and
authority to arrest and make false allegations against another man, W,
who had been engaged by the appellant to construct a website on his
behalf and a dispute arose regarding the absence of payment for the
The Journal of Criminal Law
110
To continue reading
Request your trial