Laing v Queen
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Hope |
| Judgment Date | 14 May 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] UKPC 14 |
| Date | 14 May 2013 |
| Docket Number | Appeal No 0057 of 2012 |
| Court | Privy Council |
[2013] UKPC 14
Lord Hope
Lord Kerr
Lord Reed
Appeal No 0057 of 2012
Privy Council
Appellant
Edward Fitzgerald QC
Ruth Brander
(Instructed by Simons Muirhead & Burton)
Respondent
Howard Stevens QC
Rory Field
Cindy Clarke
(Instructed by Charles Russell LLP)
Heard on 23 April 2013
The appellant, Andrew Laing, was convicted after trial before the Hon Justice Wade-Miller in the Supreme Court of Bermuda on 21 June 2007 on five counts. There were three counts of conspiring to import cannabis and one count of conspiring to import diamorphine, contrary to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972. There was also one count of assaulting a special constable with intent to prevent lawful arrest, contrary to the Criminal Code Act 1907. On 6 July 2007 the appellant was sentenced to 17 years imprisonment on the drugs charges and one year on the assault charge, those sentences to be served consecutively. He appealed against his conviction and sentence.
The appellant's grounds of appeal against conviction related to the directions of the trial judge, which were said on various grounds to have been inadequate. Evidence had been given at the trial by the appellant's former co-defendant Ms Teeteta Iereria. She had pleaded guilty on her first appearance before the Supreme Court to charges of importing the same controlled drugs with which the appellant was said to have been concerned. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment, but her sentence was later reduced on appeal to two years under section 27E of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1972 in recognition of her testimony against the appellant.
On 9 March 2009 the Court of Appeal for Bermuda (Zacca P, Stuart-Smith and Ward JJA) dismissed the appellant's appeal against conviction. His application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused. The Court of Appeal did not give any reasons in writing for its decision. But the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Ms Cindy Clarke, prepared a note of the proceedings which contains this entry:
"Appeal sentence abandoned. No merit warranting call on the Crown. Satisfied direction adequate. Appeal dismissed. Conviction affirmed. Application for leave to appeal sentence refused. Sentence affirmed."
There is no other record of what could be said to have been the court's reasons. We do not know what further explanation, if any, was given.
The appellant has now applied for permission to appeal to the Board against the decision of the Court of Appeal. The application was made on the ground that the appellant had been deprived of the protection of the law and of a fair hearing, as in the absence of reasons he had no way of knowing why his appeal and application had been dismissed or even if they had been properly considered. The application for permission was made on 24 July 2012. It was out of time, but an explanation was given as to why it had been delayed. On 22 August 2012 the solicitors for the respondent provided the appellant's solicitors with a copy of a transcript of the summing up and the sentencing process, of the Crown's case and of its supplemental skeleton submissions in the Court of Appeal. A note was then lodged in which the respondent submitted that the application for permission to appeal should be dismissed. On 4 February 2013 those representing the appellant submitted a note in reply in which they stated that, having had the opportunity of considering those documents, they were not seeking permission to pursue any additional substantive grounds of appeal against either conviction or sentence arising out of the summing up or the sentencing remarks.
On 4 March 2013, having considered these papers, the Board was satisfied that sufficient reasons had been given for the time for making the application to be extended. But it directed that there should be an oral hearing as to whether permission to appeal should be given on the ground stated in the application. On 16 April 2013 the respondent submitted a further note supplementing its objection to the application for permission. The point was made that, as the appellant had confirmed that he was not seeking to pursue any substantive ground of appeal either against conviction or sentence, no purpose would be served in granting the application. On 19 April 2013, in a letter to the solicitors for the respondent, the appellant's solicitors said:
"We have considered your response carefully with counsel. We accept that the judge's directions are not so defective as to warrant an appeal to the Privy Council. However, we do consider that there was a serious breach of the appellant's constitutional rights by the denial of reasons, in relation to a difficult issue of law as to the appropriate warning in an accomplice case, especially in the new statutory regime after the abrogation of the requirements of a formal corroboration ruling in accomplice cases."
When the application came before the Board for an oral hearing on 23 April 2013 Mr Fitzgerald QC for the appellant indicated that he wished to argue that permission should be given for the appeal to be argued on substantive grounds as well as on the issue about the absence of reasons. Mr Stevens QC for the respondent, for perfectly understandable reasons, objected to this change of position in view of the assurance only a few days before that the application was to be confined to the procedural issue. The Board decided, with some reluctance, to hear Mr Fitzgerald on the question whether permission should be given on the substantive issue. But, having heard argument on the point and considered the careful directions by the trial judge, it was satisfied that permission to appeal...
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Roberts, Curry and Moss v The Superintendent of Prisons and the Attorney General
...Justices ex parte Williams [1997] A.C. 225 and Neil v. North Antrim Magistrates' Court and another [1992] 4 All E.R. 846. R v. Laing [2013] U.K.P.C. 14 R v. Governor of Brixton Prison ex parte Armah [1968] A.C. 192 R v. Secretary of State for the Home Dept ex p Kirkwood 2. All E.R., 30 HL ;......
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Toy v. Edmonton Chief of Police et al., 2014 ABCA 353
...recognized although it depends very much on the situation and certainly upon the statutory context: see eg Laing v The Queen (Bermuda) , [2013] UKPC 14; R (on the application of G) v The Governors of X School , [2011] UKSC 30; Allsop v Alberta (Appeals Commission for Alberta Workers' Compen......
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Toy v. Edmonton Chief of Police et al., [2014] A.R. Uned. 385
...recognized although it depends very much on the situation and certainly upon the statutory context: see eg Laing v The Queen (Bermuda) , [2013] UKPC 14; R (on the application of G) v The Governors of X School , [2011] UKSC 30; Allsop v Alberta (Appeals Commission for Alberta Workers' C......
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Toy v. Edmonton Chief of Police et al., 2014 ABCA 353
...recognized although it depends very much on the situation and certainly upon the statutory context: see eg Laing v The Queen (Bermuda) , [2013] UKPC 14; R (on the application of G) v The Governors of X School , [2011] UKSC 30; Allsop v Alberta (Appeals Commission for Alberta Workers' C......