House of Lords
| DOI | 10.1177/002201838905300404 |
| Date | 01 November 1989 |
| Published date | 01 November 1989 |
| Subject Matter | House of Lords |
HOUSE
OF
LORDS
FACfUALLY
CONTRADICfORY
COUNTS
R. v. Bellman
Where an indictment contains counts of obtaining property by
deception and counts of conspiracy, which are factually exclusive
in that the one group depends on the falsehood, and the other on
the truth, of the same representations, may the trial judge leave
them all to the jury, to decide where the truth lies and to convict
of whichever group is appropriate? In R. v. Bellman (1989) 88
Cr.App.R.
252, this in effect was what the trial judge did, for he
directed the jury first to consider the conspiracy counts and that
only if they acquitted on those counts would it be necessary to
consider the deception counts. In the event, they convicted on the
deception counts and acquitted on the conspiracy counts. The
Court of Appeal, however, quashed the convictions, on the ground
that the two groups of courts were not merely mutually exclusive,
but were also mutually destructive: see (1988) 86 Cr.App.R. 40.
The court certified as a point of law of general public importance
the question whethercounts which are mutually exclusive (meaning
factually contradictory, in the sense that a conviction on the one
necessarily involves an acquittal on the other) could all be left to
the jury or whether the Crown should be required to elect, in the
course of the trial, which was the group of counts on which they
wished to proceed. The House of Lords has now reversed the
Court of Appeal's decision. There is no rule of law which prevents
the inclusion in one indictment of mutually exclusive counts. Thus,
if, at the end of the prosecution's case, the evidence establishes a
prima facie case on both (sets of) counts, the whole matter should
be left to the jury to determine the question of guilt, so that the
prosecution is never put to their election of the counts on which
the jury are to proceed (see per Lord Griffiths, at p. 261).
The allegations made by the prosectuion in the present case
were that the appellants had obtained property by deceiving the
victims with a charade which induced them to believe that it was
458
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