R v Fenton
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE |
| Judgment Date | 01 July 1975 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1975] EWCA Crim J0701-3 |
| Date | 01 July 1975 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 2767/C/74 |
[1975] EWCA Crim J0701-3
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Widgery)
Mr. Justice Milmo
and
Mr. Justice Wien
No. 2767/C/74
MR. M. WATERS, Q.C. and MR. A. RAWLEY appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
SIR PETER RAWLINSON, Q.C. and MR. I. KENNEDY, Q.C. appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On the 6th May of last year in the Crown Court at Exeter this Appellant pleaded not guilty to an indictment containing four separate counts of murder: that is to say allegations that he had murdered four separate people. He was convicted of murder on each of those four counts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
He now appeals to this Court against his conviction by leave of the single Judge.
He is now 46 years of age and has led a somewhat turbulent life. One has to look a little into his background because it is relevant to the arguments which were put forward at the trial. In particular, in recent years since 1971 he has had a contact with a gentleman called Tsigirides, who is the owner of the Carlton Casino Club in Torquay, and this association between the Appellant and Tsigirides has given rise to many disputes and violence on more than one occasion. As recently as June 1973 the Appellant was expelled from the club on the instructions of Tsigirides for drunken and wild behaviour. There were other incidents of bad blood between them arising out of loans of money and the like.
The Appellant had served in the army at the age of 17. He did well enough as a soldier, except that he got himself into trouble for dishonesty and was eventually discharged on that account.
In 1969, after he had left the army, he had some success in business, but in May of 1969 he was admitted to hospital with depression. He says he has been the subject of blackmail. He has tried to commit suicide on more than one occasion. He has been in hospital for mental treatment and, as I have said, his life has been full of incident, much of it not of a satisfactory or welcome kind.
However there was a period in the late 1960's and early 1970's when his business began to prosper and he led a very much more stable life, but even then when he was at his best, as it were, there were some strange incidents reported about him. He had occasion to overtake a car on the inside and, annoyed because the driver would not allow him to do so, he got out of his car, seized the driver's head and repeatedly banged it against the car which the other man was driving: indications of his instability, his violent temper and his ability to lose control very easily.
By July of 1973 things between the Appellant and Tsigirides seem to have been getting rather worse. There was an occasion between them when knives were used, each blaming the other for the occasion.
Eventually one comes to the day of the incident in which these four killings took place, which was the 21st December, 1973. That was the last working day before Christmas, the day when office parties are held and things of that kind, and the Appellant's office was no exception. He started the day by going to an optician to have some new glasses, and the optician described his behaviour as "odd" and sought to get him "off the premises" as quickly as possible. He then repaired to his office where he drank half a bottle of rum with his two secretaries, he consuming most of it and the secretaries a minor portion. By this time not surprisingly his mood had improved. He was described as being "jolly". Later on that same evening he said he shared something over a bottle of whisky with a business acquaintance, so that by 11 o'clock or thereabouts he had obviously had a great deal to drink.
At about 11 o'clock he was driving his motor car in Torquay when he attracted the attention of the police, and a police officer followed his car in a police 'panda' car. Eventually the Appellant's car was driven into a cul-de-sac with the police car behind and no means of escape, and the Appellant then, with virtually no preliminaries, drew a revolver and shot and killed the policeman who had been driving the panda car.
He then left, driving the police car because he could not get his own car out, and he went to a hotel where he lived. He spent about twenty minutes there and left the hotel in a van which was his own and repaired to the Casino Club where Tsigirides was likely to...
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