Court of Criminal Appeal
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836402800304 |
| Date | 01 July 1964 |
| Published date | 01 July 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of
Criminal
Appeal
EVIDENCE OF
CO-DEFENDANT:
CROSS-EXAMINATION AS TO
HIS
RECORD
R. v. Stannard
A
PERSON
charged and called as a witness shall not be
required to answer any question tending to show that he
has committed or been convicted of or been charged with any
offence other
than
that wherewith he is
then
charged, or is of
bad character. One of the exceptions to this rule, which is
enunciated in s. 1(f) of the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898, is
the
case in which "(iii) he has given evidence against any other
person charged with the same offence". In R. v. Stannard
(1964,2 W.L.R. 461) the
Court
(Winn,
Fenton
Atkinson and
Thompson,
JJ.)
gave an important explanation of the opera-
tion of this exception.
The
Appeal Committee of the House of
Lords subsequently refused leave to appeal.
Sand his co-defendants,
Band
C, pleaded
not
guilty to a
count charging that they conspired together and with other
persons unknown to receive motor-cars knowing
them
to be
stolen.
During
the course of the trial S, in reply to questions
by the trial judge and his evidence-in-chief, gave evidence
which appeared to incriminate his co-defendants. Counsel
for the co-defendants thereupon applied for and received
permission to cross-examine S in respect of a previous con-
viction on the grounds that
S's
evidence tended to incriminate
Band
C.
During
the summing-up, the judge referred to the
difference in the versions of the evidence given on the one
hand by S and on the other hand by his co-defendants, and
told the
jury
that
it was for them to resolve the conflicts in the
evidence of the defendants. All three defendants were found
guilty.
Two
of the grounds of appeal were
(I)
that the cross-
examination of S by counsel for the co-defendants was
contrary to s. 1
(f)
(iii) of the Criminal Evidence Act, 1898,
(2) that it should be a rule of law for
ajudge
when summing-up
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