R v Bainbridge
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 21 January 1991 |
| Date | 21 January 1991 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Lane, Lord Chief Justice, Mr Justice Owen and Mr Justice Pill
Criminal procedure - judge's direction - relevance of defendant's good character
A judge's direction to the jury about the relevance of a defendant's good character had to include the first aspect, the conventional direction, which related to his credibility, but it was not obligatory for the judge to add the second aspect, which related to the unlikelihood of a person of good character being guilty of such an offence. In each case it was a matter for the judge's discretion.
The Court of Appeal so held when dismissing an appeal by Alan David Bainbridge, now aged 41, against conviction by a majority after a seven-day trial at Chelmsford Crown Court (Mr Justice Hidden and a jury) of soliciting to murder his appellant's wife, to whom he had been married for nearly 20 years. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. An application for leave to appeal against sentence was refused.
Mr Charles W. Byers, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr Nigel Lithman for the Crow.
The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, giving the judgment of the court, said that the prosecution case was that the appellant wanted his wife killed and that he made that clear to a man named Derek Ray, who introduced him to an undercover police officer posing as a hired assassin, whom the appellant solicited to murder his wife.
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S & H v The Crown
... ... 11 In the words of Lord Scarman, who alone expressed the view that the Court of Criminal Appeal in Northern Ireland had gone further than the Court of Criminal Appeal for England and Wales had found it necessary to go in Bainbridge [1960] 1 Q.B. 129 , said: "Upon the facts as found by the trial judge …, the appellant knew he was guiding a party of men [in the Cortina] to the Crosskeys Inn on a U.V.F. military-style "job," i.e. an attack by bomb, incendiary device or bullet on persons or property. He did ... ...