Sheldrake v DPP
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL |
| Judgment Date | 14 October 2004 |
| Neutral Citation | [2004] UKHL 43 |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Date | 14 October 2004 |
(Criminal Appeal from Her Majesty's High Court of Justice)
(Conjoined Appeals)
[2004] UKHL 43
The Appellate Committee comprised:
Lord Bingham of Cornhill
Lord Steyn
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Lord Carswell
HOUSE OF LORDS
My Lords,
Sections 5(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and 11(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000, conventionally interpreted, impose a legal or persuasive burden on a defendant in criminal proceedings to prove the matters respectively specified in those subsections if he is to be exonerated from liability on the grounds there provided. That means that he must, to be exonerated, establish those matters on the balance of probabilities. If he fails to discharge that burden he will be convicted. In this appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions and this reference by the Attorney General these reverse burdens ("reverse" because the burden is placed on the defendant and not, as ordinarily in criminal proceedings, on the prosecutor) are challenged as incompatible with the presumption of innocence guaranteed by article 6(2) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd 8969). Thus the first question for consideration in each case is whether the provision in question does, unjustifiably, infringe the presumption of innocence. If it does the further question arises whether the provision can and should be read down in accordance with the courts' interpretative obligation under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 so as to impose an evidential and not a legal burden on the defendant. An evidential burden is not a burden of proof. It is a burden of raising, on the evidence in the case, an issue as to the matter in question fit for consideration by the tribunal of fact. If an issue is properly raised, it is for the prosecutor to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that that ground of exoneration does not avail the defendant.
Before turning to the facts of these two cases it is necessary to place them in their legal context. To this end I shall briefly review the pre-Convention law of England and Wales, the Strasbourg jurisprudence as it has so far developed and some of the leading cases decided in the United Kingdom since the Convention was incorporated into our domestic law by the Human Rights Act 1998.
The pre-Convention law of England and Wales
The governing principle of English criminal law, memorably affirmed by Viscount Sankey LC in Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions [1935] AC 462, 481, is that the onus lies upon the prosecution in a criminal trial to prove all the elements of the offence with which the accused is charged. This principle has been regarded as supremely important, but not as absolute. Viscount Sankey acknowledged (p 475) the authority of M'Naghten's Case (1843) 10 Cl & Fin 200 which had "definitely and exceptionally" placed an onus on the accused to establish a defence of insanity. He further acknowledged (p 481) that his statement of principle was "subject also to any statutory exception".
One form of statutory exception arose where a defendant sought to rely, in answer to a criminal charge on indictment, on any statutory exception, exemption, proviso, excuse or qualification. It was clearly established that the burden of proving such ground of exoneration, on a balance of probabilities, lay on him: R v Edwards [1975] QB 27; R v Hunt (Richard) [1987] AC 352. When courts of summary jurisdiction in recognisably modern form were established in 1848, this rule of practice was extended to them and remains the law: see section 14 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1848; section 39(2) of the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879; section 81 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952; and (now) section 101 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980. Thus, on a charge of selling intoxicating liquor without a justices' licence, it is not for the prosecutor to prove that the defendant had no licence but for the defendant to prove that he had: R v Edwards; R v Hunt (Richard).
It is not only in cases such as these, and cases of insanity, that a burden may be placed upon the defendant to prove (on a balance of probabilities) a special statutory defence. Thus in Mancini v Director of Public Prosecutions [1942] AC 1, 11, Viscount Simon LC referred, as an exception to the rule in Woolmington's case, to "offences where onus of proof is specially dealt with by statute". In Jayasena v The Queen [1970] AC 618, 623, Lord Devlin also recognised "a statutory defence" as an exception to the Woolmington rule, and Lord Templeman in R v Hunt (Richard) [1987] AC 352, 364, referred to "statutory defences which must be proved by the accused". Far from condemning the placing of a burden on the accused to prove (on the balance of probabilities) a ground of exoneration, judges of high authority have, in cases judged by them to be appropriate, advocated such a course. Lord Pearce did so in R v Warner [1969] 2 AC 256, 307 and again in Sweet v Parsley [1970] AC 132, 157. In the latter case, at p 150, Lord Reid also said:
"Parliament has not infrequently transferred the onus as regards mens rea to the accused, so that, once the necessary facts are proved, he must convince the jury that on balance of probabilities he is innocent of any criminal intention. I find it a little surprising that more use has not been made of this method".
A further example may be given. When, in 1987, it was proposed to criminalise the possession of a bladed or sharply pointed article, other than a small pocket knife, "without good reason or lawful authority", Lord Denning suggested that the burden of proving good reason or lawful authority by way of defence should be expressly placed on the defendant (Hansard, (HL Debates) vol 489, 3 November 1987, cols 923-924). The suggestion was accepted (Hansard, (HL Debates) vol 490, 23 November 1987, cols 474, 475), and section 139(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, as enacted, provides:
"It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had good reason or lawful authority for having the article with him in a public place".
In practice, Parliament has been very ready to impose legal burdens on, or provide for presumptions rebuttable by, the defendant: see Ashworth and Blake, "The Presumption of Innocence in English Criminal Law" [1996] Crim LR 306, 309. But the language of the statute may not, in some cases, make it plain whether a ground of exoneration must be established by the defendant or negatived by the prosecutor. In Nimmo v Alexander Cowan & Sons Ltd [1968] AC 107 the House was divided on the question. In such a case, as Lord Griffiths said in R v Hunt (Richard) [1987] AC 352, 374:
"the court should look to other considerations to determine the intention of Parliament such as the mischief at which the Act was aimed and practical considerations affecting the burden of proof and, in particular, the ease or difficulty that the respective parties would encounter in discharging the burden. I regard this last consideration as one of great importance for surely Parliament can never lightly be taken to have intended to impose an onerous duty on a defendant to prove his innocence in a criminal case, and a court should be very slow to draw any such inference from the language of a statute".
One further point may conveniently be noted at this stage. In Sweet v Parsley [1970] AC 132, 148-149, Lord Reid stated that
"there has for centuries been a presumption that Parliament did not intend to make criminals of persons who were in no way blameworthy in what they did. That means that whenever a section is silent as to mens rea there is a presumption that, in order to give effect to the will of Parliament, we must read in words appropriate to require mens rea ….. it is firmly established by a host of authorities that mens rea is an essential ingredient of every offence unless some reason can be found for holding that that is not necessary".
Thus, in interpreting an offence-creating statutory provision, the starting-point for the court is, as Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead put it in B (A Minor) v Director of Public Prosecutions [2000] 2 AC 428, 460,
"the established common law presumption that a mental element, traditionally labelled mens rea, is an essential ingredient unless Parliament has indicated a contrary intention either expressly or by necessary implication".
Effect was given to the presumption in that case, as it was in R v K [2002] 1 AC 462. It is a strong presumption, not easily displaced. The more serious the crime, and the more severe the potential consequences of conviction, the less readily will it be displaced. But it is of course the ordinary duty of the courts to give effect to what Parliament has by clear words or necessary implication enacted, and it is not hard to find instances in which Parliament has clearly intended to attach criminal consequences to proof of defined facts, irrespective of an individual's state of mind or moral blameworthiness. Many such instances are found in legislation regulating the conduct of economic and social life: see Smith & Hogan, Criminal Law, 10th ed (2002), chapter 7, "Crimes of strict liability". Offences against such regulations are often regarded as not truly criminal, since the penalty inflicted is not dire and little or no stigma attaches to conviction. Not all offences of strict liability, however, fall within this sterile regulatory area. An old instance which may be thought not to do so is found in section 12...
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Subject Index
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