Effect of Intoximeter's Defects
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300610 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Effect
of
Intoximeter's
Defects
the information should be received. The court pointed out that it is there
that
the
information is required
and
that it is there that its absence takes
effect, since it was there that the illegal parking took place and, there-
fore, where the absence of the information matters. The action which is
required is at
the
receiving end of the letter containing the information
that is required. Sedley J expressed his relief at being able, as a matter of
law, .to make an exception to Lord Atkin's statement that justice and
convenience are often
not
on speaking terms. Here, at least, law
and
convenience were taught to speak the same language.
Effect
of
Intoximeter's Defects
DPPvBarber
(1999) 163
JP457
The respondent to this prosecutor's appeal was a motorist whose road-
side breath test had proved positive
and
who
was asked to provide two
further specimens at the police station, the result of which was also
positive, and he was prosecuted for an offence contrary to s 5 of the
Road Traffic Act 1988. Before the stipendiary magistrate, it was
shown
that in the printout from the Intoximeter upon which the prosecution
relied the first two characters on each line were missing. That was the
only defect in the printout, for
the
information indicating the alcohol
content of the breath was quite clear
and
conclusively demonstrated
that
the
defendant had consumed so
much
alcohol as to be over
the
prescribed limit. That information was further into the body of the
printout
and
showed none of
the
defects which appeared on
the
left-
hand
side of
the
paper. As the paper could be inserted in
the
machine in
only
one
way, the error
must
have been due to the fact that
the
computer was
not
printing completely accurately. The defendant sub-
mitted to
the
magistrate
that
he
had
no case to answer, since the
computer was
not
working accurately, so that, by virtue of s 69( I) of the
Police
and
Criminal Evidence Act 1984
(PACE),
the evidence produced
by it was inadmissible. The prosecutor argued that
the
printout was
not
part of the computer: the computer itself was working properly, so that
the requirements of s 69( I) had been met. The magistrate held that,
since part of
the
results of the working of the computer was inaccurate,
this demonstrated that the computer was
not
working properly, so that
the document produced by it was rendered inadmissible by the express
terms of the section. The prosecutor had proposed to call as an expert
witness a service engineer
who
would say that he had examined the
machine a few days after the date in question
and
had
found the cause
of the omission to print the first two characters on each line, and that
that cause had nothing whatever to do with the working of the com-
puter
itself. The magistrate declined to receive this evidence for two
reasons:
I.
the
potential witness was only a service engineer,
not
acomputer
expert,
and
527
To continue reading
Request your trial