Crummock (Scotland) Ltd v HM Advocate
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 16 March 2000 |
| Docket Number | No 50 |
| Date | 16 March 2000 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
JC
LJ-C Cullen, Lord Cowie and Lord Weir
Procedure—Solemn procedure—Devolution issue—Delay in bringing proceedings—Company charged with breach of Health and Safety at Work legislation as result of escape of diesel oil into public water supply—Delay of two and three quarter years in bringing proceedings said to be due to complexity of case and need for detailed scientific investigations—Whether trial “within a reasonable time”—European Convention on Human Rights, art 6(1)1
Procedure—Solemn procedure—Devolution issue—Independent and impartial tribunal—Company charged on indictment with polluting public water supply to the danger of health and safety of the inhabitants of Edinburgh and surrounding districts—Jurors to be summoned from area allegedly exposed to danger—Whether jury objectively independent—European Convention on Human Rights, art 6(1)1
A company was charged on indictment with contraventions of secs 3(1) and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in respect of the escape of diesel oil into the public water supply in the middle of March 1997 whereby the water supply was contaminated “all to the danger to the health and safety of the inhabitants of Edinburgh and surrounding districts”. The indictment was served in November 1999 for trial in the sheriff court at Edinburgh. Initially investigations were carried out by the environmental protection agency in conjunction with the water authority. As a result of these investigations, the company was at first informed in June 1997 that no referral to the procurator fiscal would be made but in September 1997 a report was made to the procurator fiscal who requested that further investigations be made. A further report was submitted to the procurator fiscal in January 1998 when the Crown commenced taking precognitions. A report was made to the Crown Office in September 1999. At the first diet the company submitted in bar of trial that, first, the delay of two and three quarter years in bringing proceedings constituted a violation of the company's right to trial within a reasonable time under art 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights and, secondly, that the jury could not constitute an independent and impartial tribunal because the jury would be perceived as being in effect complainers. The Crown maintained that the case was one of complexity and required detailed scientific investigation in order to establish the cause of the spillage of the oil. Fifty-three Crown witnesses had been cited for the trial, of whom eight were scientists. The sheriff repelled the objections. The company thereafter appealed to the High Court of Justiciary.
Held (1) that whether the delay was reasonable had to be a matter of impression and while the very length of time taken to bring the proceedings appeared to raise a question as to whether the Crown had proceeded with expedition, the court were bound to accept that the case was necessarily one where a careful investigation of matters of scientific complexity was required and, accordingly, the undoubted delay could not be affirmed as so unreasonable as to contravene art 6(1) (p411C–D); (2) that it was fallacious to describe potential jurors as complainers since the relationship between any juror and the event was remote, and as all that happened was that the water supply in some parts of the city had been interrupted and inconvenience caused for a period of
time, there was no ground for even the most exacting impartial observer to perceive the jury as not being independent and impartial (p 412A–C); and (3) that, in any event, there were practical safeguards in place to ensure that an independent and impartial jury would be balloted to try the company (p 412C–F); and appealrefused.Pullar v United KingdomHRC (1996) 22 EHRR 391considered.
Crummock (Scotland) Limited were charged on an indictment at the instance of the Right Honourable The Lord Hardie, QC, Her Majesty's Advocate, the libel of which is sufficiently described in the opinion of the court.
The company lodged a minute in terms of ch 40 of the Act of Adjournal (Criminal Procedure Rules) 1996 intimating their intention to raise two devolution issues in terms of sched 6 to the Scotland Act 1998...
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Luke Mitchell V. Her Majesty's Advocate
...as appeared from the observations of Lord Osborne at page 421. Counsel went on to rely on Crummock (Scotland) Limited v HM Advocate 2000 J.C. 408. That case had been concerned, not so much with publicity, as with the impartiality of the potential jury. Reference was made to the observations......
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Kenneth Anthony Paton Mills v HM Advocate and Another
...however the way this right was construed in Darmalingum v The State seems to me to be preferable. In Crummock (Scotland) Ltd v HM Advocate 2000 SLT 677, 679A-B, Lord Weir, delivering the opinion of the High Court of Justiciary, said that under article 6(1) it was not necessary for an accuse......
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Chief Inspector F. B. Nolan v Patricia Marion Cooper and Samuel Ernest Cooper
...prejudice (to welfare) was of particular importance, but was not decisive. The issue had to be 29 Crummock (Scotland) Ltd. v HM Advocate [2000] JC 408 30 At page 29. 26 considered in the round and by reference to whether, in all the circumstances, the situation created by the delay is such ......
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Chief Inspector F. B. Nolan v Patricia Marion Cooper and Samuel Ernest Cooper
...prejudice (to welfare) was of particular importance, but was not decisive. The issue had to be 29 Crummock (Scotland) Ltd. v HM Advocate [2000] JC 408 30 At page 29. 26 considered in the round and by reference to whether, in all the circumstances, the situation created by the delay is such ......