Court of Appeal—St. Helena
| Published date | 01 August 1986 |
| Date | 01 August 1986 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838605000304 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
COURT
OF
APPEAL-ST.
HELENA
ATIEMPT
Stevensv. R.
The
defendant in the above case appealed to the Court of Appeal of
St. Helena (sitting in London) against his conviction by the
Supreme Court of St. Helena (Spry,
C.l.
and a jury) for murdering
apoliceman; attempting to murder his own wife; and possessing a
firearm with intent to endangerlife. His grounds of appeal were that
(as to all three charges) the jury (and, indeed, the whole island
ofSt.
Helena) had been biased against him, and that (as to the charge of
attempted murder) he had committed no more than apreparatory
act. The first ground of appeal therefore, raised an interesting point
of constitutional law
(namely-the
properfunction of trial by jury in
very small jurisdictions), but the second ground of appeal raised a
much more topical
issue-what,
in law, can amount only to a
preparatory act, rather than to an arguable criminal attempt? In the
event, Stevens' appeal was allowed as to the conviction for
attempted murder, but dismissed as to both the
other
convictions.
(The defendant had been prepared to plead guilty to manslaughter
on the ground of diminished responsibility, and had desired to be
removed to England for his trial to avoid the alleged local prejudice.
This was conjectured to arise out of the fact that the population of
the island was only some 5,500 people, and that the crime of murder
had not taken place there for some 70 years.)
The constitutional issues have been fully reported in the new
series of law reports, Law Reports
of
the Commonwealth, at [1985]
L.R.C.
(Crim.) 17.Mr. LouisBlom-Cooper, Q.c. (who appeared for
the appellant) has kindly confirmed that the Criminal Attempts Act
1981 was not in force in St. Helena at any material time, so that that
question was argued on common law principles (chiefly relying on
D.P.P. v. Stonehouse [1977]3
W.L.R.
143). All of this is curiously
omitted from the law reports and from the judgment of the court.
Notwithstanding, however, the common law nature of the crime of
attempt in St. Helena, and the absence of any legislation
247
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