Detention in Breach of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300518 |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
TheJournal of
Criminal
Law
(1) correct directions
on
points of law, (2)
an
accurate review of
the
main
facts
and
alleged facts,
and
(3) a general impression of fairness:
cf perLord Morris in R v
Greery
the
court agreed
that
the
longer
the
trial,
the
longer
one
might expect
the
summing-up to be,
the
judge's aim should still be
the
briefest summing-
up compatible
with
fairness.
The present decision emphasises
the
importance of
the
change in
the
functions of
the
Court
of Appeal in 1995. Here, there would appear to be
no
single error of law in
the
judge's directions which would in itself
necessarily have led to
the
quashing of
the
conviction before 1995. And
the
court was here far from adopting
the
submissions of counsel for
the
defence
upon
the
two principles argued by
him
as his
main
grounds of
appeal, namely,
the
consequences of
the
brevity of
the
summing-up
and
the
need
for
the
judge to rehearse in detail all
the
points
thought
by
the
defence to be fit to go to
the
jury. At
what
length
and
in
what
detail
the
judge
has
seen fit to address
the
jury
are
not
persegrounds of appeal. The
conclusion of
the
court to quash
the
convictions in this case highlights
the
importance of
the
introduction by
the
Criminal Appeal
Act
1995 of
the
'new
provision' instructing
the
court to determine
the
appeal
on
the
basis of
whether
it thinks
the
conviction is 'unsafe',
the
significance of
which change is clearly stated by Lord Bingham CJ in Rv
Graham
and
others
Detention
in
Breach of the Police
and
Criminal Evidence
Act 1984·
Roberts
v
Cheshire
Chief
Constable
[1999] 1 WLR 662
The plaintiff was arrested
on
suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary
and
was
taken
to a police station,
where
at 11.25
pm
the
custody officer,
in accordance with s 37 of
the
Police
and
Crlmlnal Evidence Act 1984
(PACE), authorised his detention in a cell. In
the
course of
the
night he
was transferred to
another
police station,
where
the
custody officer
authorised his continued detention in a cell. At 7.45
am
the
first review
of his detention was
made
(by a police inspector)
who
purported to
make
that
review
under
s40(3)(b) of
PACE,
for, although it was
then
more
than
six
hours
after he was detained in
the
first police station, it
was within six hours of his detention in
the
second. It was
thought
that
latter fact sufficed to bring
the
review within
the
Act. At
that
review,
further detention was authorised in
order
to obtain evidence by ques-
tioning. At 5.20
pm
the
same day, further detention was authorised to
preserve
the
evidence
and
to obtain further evidence from questioning
the
co-detainees. But at 6.55
pm
he
was released from custody
without
charge, owing to there being insufficient evidence. Although in
the
earlier periods in
the
cells
he
was asleep, it was clear
that
he
recognised
the
fact
that
he
was being detained in a cell. He sued
the
Chief Constable
for .damages for false imprisonment
who
then
appealed.
424
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