David Cullen Bain v The Queen
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Hoffmann |
| Judgment Date | 16 March 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] UKPC 4 |
| Court | Privy Council |
| Date | 16 March 2009 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No 9 of 2006 |
[2009] UKPC 4
Privy Council
Present at the hearing:-
Lord Hoffmann
Lord Scott of Foscote
Lord Mance
[Delivered by Lord Hoffmann]
On 10 May 2007 the Privy Council allowed an appeal by David Bain against his convictions in 1995 on five counts of murder and ordered a retrial. The appellant now petitions the Privy Council to discharge the order for a retrial and substitute an acquittal. The grounds for the application are that events which have occurred since the hearing before the Board, including the discovery of some information about previous matters, make it unjust for the appellant to be tried again. At the conclusion of the hearing on 8 December 2008 their Lordships announced that they would humbly advise Her Majesty that the petition should be dismissed. Their reasons follow.
On 26 July 2007 there was a hearing in the High Court before Panckhurst J at which counsel for the appellant advised that an application for a stay of the prosecution would be made. The judge directed that it should be heard before the end of 2007. No application had been filed by 2 November, when the judge directed that any pre-trial applications be filed before the end of that month. On 29 November 2007 he recorded that any such application was to be filed before the Christmas vacation.
A draft stay application without affidavits was filed on 21 December 2007. On 5 February 2008 the judge directed that any stay application was to be filed by 24 April and argued in the week commencing 12 May. By this time the judge was becoming anxious about the delay in bringing the case to trial. On 13 May the stay application was not yet ready and the judge felt that he had no option but to adjourn the trial, then fixed to begin in August 2008, to 16 February 2009.
On 21 August 2008 the appellant's counsel filed a memorandum indicating that this petition to the Privy Council would be filed and that in the meanwhile the stay application before the judge would not be pursued. The judge understandably expressed concern that an excursion to London might result in the stay application to his court being made on the eve of the date fixed for trial. Meanwhile, he gave a number of interlocutory rulings about the admissibility of evidence and the like, some of which were appealed to the Court of Appeal.
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...in the Court of Appeal in Taylor v Lawrence [2002] EWCA Civ 90; [2003] QB 528 and followed by the Privy Council in Bain v The Queen [2009] UKPC 4. As the Privy Council said in the latter case at para 6, quoting Lord Woolf CJ at p 547 in the former case: "What will be of the greatest impo......
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