Interpretation of s. 80 of PACE 1984: When is a Spouse Compellable?
| Author | Natalie Wortley,Michael Stockdale |
| DOI | 10.1350/1740-5580-77.1.10 |
| Published date | 01 February 2013 |
| Date | 01 February 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
The operation of the Church test has attracted a great deal of debate
and criticism (see, for example, B. Mitchell, ‘Minding the Gap in Un-
lawful and Dangerous Act Manslaughter: A Moral Defence for One
Punch Killers’ (2008) 72 JCL 537). The requirement that a reasonable
and sober person need only foresee the risk of some physical harm
means that a defendant may be liable despite having only a low level of
culpability. The present case confirms that the questions of whether the
unlawful act was dangerous and whether the unlawful act was causative
of death are to be determined separately and there need not necessarily
be a link between the two.
Adam Jackson
Interpretation of s. 80 of PACE 1984: When Is a Spouse
Compellable?
R vA(B) [2012] EWCA Crim 1529
Keywords Compellability; Spouses; Specified offences; Criminal dam-
age; Terminating rulings
A husband (A) and wife (W) had been married for 15 years and had
three children. There was a background of domestic violence and A had
a previous caution and a previous conviction for assaulting W. On 7 June
2011 the couple argued, and W locked herself in the children’s bedroom.
A announced that he was going to burn the house down with the
children inside. W heard A press a portable gas igniter in the kitchen and
then leave the premises. Upon leaving the bedroom, she discovered that
A had turned on the hobs and oven. W subsequently made a statement
to the police describing these events and, as a result, A was charged with
threatening to cause criminal damage contrary to s. 2(a) of the Criminal
Damage Act 1971.
At A’s trial, W refused to give evidence against A. The prosecution
submitted that W was compellable under s. 80(2A)(b) of the Police and
Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (‘PACE 1984’). The trial judge ruled that W
was not compellable because the offence with which A had been
charged was not one that ‘involves an assault on, or injury or a threat of
injury to, the spouse or civil partner or a person who was at the material
time under the age of 16’ as required by s. 80(3)(a) of PACE 1984. This
ruling amounted to a terminating ruling under s. 58 of the Criminal
Justice Act 2003 and the prosecution applied for leave to appeal to the
Court of Appeal. Leave was refused by the trial judge, but granted by
the Court of Appeal.
H
ELD
,
DISMISSING THE APPEAL
, W was not compellable because the
offence did not involve an assault, injury or threat of injury. The offence
created by s. 2(a) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 is an offence against
property and is, therefore, not a specified offence under s. 80 of PACE
1984. The question of whether an offence is a specified offence must be
The Journal of Criminal Law
10
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