R (O) v Coventry Magistrates Court
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 05 April 2004 |
| Date | 05 April 2004 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISIONAL COURT
Before Mr Justice Gage and Mr Justice Keith
Evidence - computer printout admissible as real evidence
A computer printout recording successful and unsuccessful attempts to enter a website was admissible as real evidence.
The Queen's Bench Divisional Court so held in dismissing an application for judicial review by the claimant, O, of the decision of District Judge Gillespie at Coventry Magistrates Court on November 4, 2003 that O be committed for trial on charges of incitement to distribute indecent photographs of children and attempting to incite another to distribute them contrary to common law and section 1 of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981.
Mr Gavin Purves for O; Mr David Perry and Mr Dennis Desmond for the Crown Prosecution Service, as interested party.
MR JUSTICE GAGE said that following an investigation in the United States, it was discovered that a commercial child pornography business, Landslide Productions Inc, operating from Fort Worth in Texas, was offering to supply child pornography to internet users in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The business was established by Thomas Reedy and Janis Reedy, husband and wife.
The prosecutor charged the claimant with three offences of unlawfully inciting another to distribute an indecent photograph of a child and three offences of attempted incitement based on evidence that he gained access to child pornography sites and paid the required entrance fee to the sites by using his credit card.
The claimant argued that the district judge was wrong to admit into evidence a document produced by PC Sharon Girling, of information obtained from Landslide Productions database containing a breakdown of the claimant's successful and unsuccessful attempts to enter the websites and charges made to his credit card.
The claimant submitted that the evidence of the computer printout was hearsay and inadmissible because the evidence was not merely of the computer but the information was entered by a human mind.
His Lordship referred to R v SpibyUNK ((1990) 91 Cr App R 186, 191-192) where it was held that a printout from a device...
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