Boyle v H. M. Advocate
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 25 March 1976 |
| Date | 25 March 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 7. |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
JC
Lords Cameron, Leechman, Thomson.
Application for extension of time for leave to appeal against conviction—Competency of appeal—Miscarriage of justice—Sec. 254 (1) Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 (cap. 21).
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Sec. 254 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 providesinter alia "(1) The High Court on an appeal against conviction shall allow the appeal if they think … (c) that on any ground there was a miscarriage of justice …"
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John Boyle confessed, and subsequently pled guilty, to a crime he later alleged he did not commit. In his application for extension of time to lodge an application for leave to appeal against conviction the question arose whether it was competent for the court to entertain an appeal against conviction where a plea of guilty had been entered from an accused acting with legal advice.
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Held that the words "on any ground" in sec. 254 (1) (c) were of such width as not to prevent the court giving a relief.
John Joseph Boyle pled guilty by letter in terms of Sec. 102 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975 to an indictment charging him with assault and robbery. He was convicted on 18th November 1975 of assault and robbery at the Sheriff Court, Glasgow, and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment at the High Court, Edinburgh, on 25th November 1975. Boyle subsequently lodged an application for leave to appeal against sentence. He did not lodge an application for leave to appeal against conviction. It was stated in the reasons of the application for extension of time that Boyle completed the form for appeal against sentence without legal advice and without any explanation as to the difference between conviction and sentence and was under the impression that the application which he had completed covered both.
The following narrative setting out the surrounding circumstances of the present application is taken from the opinion of Lord Cameron. "The applicant was a private soldier in the Scots Guards. He went absent without leave on 17th September 1975. On 19th October he was detained by the civil police in Glasgow at the request of the Army. He was collected by a military escort from police custody and was on his way south when, in conversation with the sergeant in charge of the escort, he compared conditions in military and civil prisons. At some point in this conversation the applicant produced a newspaper cutting giving a report of this bank robbery and then informed the sergeant that he was responsible for it. Thereafter the applicant was returned to custody of the civil police in Glasgow to whom he offered a detailed and circumstantial confession to the charge to which he subsequently tendered a plea of guilty. The reason ascribed for this action was that the applicant preferred conditions in a civil prison and did not expect too lengthy a sentence. Whatever may be thought of this somewhat bizarre story, the undoubted fact is that the applicant did plead guilty to a serious crime of which he was wholly innocent … The circumstances which are now disclosed are extraordinary if not unique, in respect that the Crown now concede that the applicant is wholly innocent of the charge which was brought against him and that the Crown authorities are satisfied that the applicant could not have been concerned in the robbery. How this erroneous charge came in the first place to be made was due to errors in investigation and information, which provided the prosecution with material which at the time appeared to corroborate the applicant's own detailed and circumstantial admissions and confessions. Before us it was frankly and formally stated by the learned Solicitor-General on behalf of the Crown that there has been a miscarriage of justice in respect of this conviction."
On 4th March 1976 the application for extension of time within which to appeal against conviction was heard by the High Court of Justiciary.
LORD CAMERON:—[His Lordship summarised the earlier history of the case and continued]:—
The initial question however in the case is whether it is competent for this Court to entertain an appeal against conviction where there has been a recorded plea of guilty from an accused acting with the benefit of legal advice and in full knowledge of the nature of the crime with which he has been charged, Mr Robertson for the applicant has maintained that such an appeal can competently be entertained and in this...
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