R v Howson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE GRIFFITHS |
| Judgment Date | 03 July 1981 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1981] EWCA Crim J0703-14 |
| Docket Number | No. 1646/R/80 No. 1812/R/80 No. 1853/R/80 No. 1860/R/80 No. 1869/R/80 No. 1872/R/80 No. 1902/R/80 No. 1752/R/80 No. 1875/R/80 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 03 July 1981 |
[1981] EWCA Crim J0703-14
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Griffiths
Mr. Justice Russell
and
Mr. Justice Farquharson
No. 1646/R/80
No. 1658/R/80
No. 1812/R/80
No. 1853/R/80
No. 1860/R/80
No. 1869/R/80
No. 1872/R/80
No. 1902/R/80
No. 1752/R/80
No. 1875/R/80
MR. D. HOLLIS Q.C. and MR. J. GRACE appeared for the Applicant Littlefield.
MR. A. DAVIES appeared for the Applicants Hickey and Howorth.
MR. A. BAILLIE appeared for the Applicant Haycock.
MR. A. MASSEY appeared for the Applicant Asher.
MR. R. O'RORKE appeared for the Applicants McLean and Lake.
MR. S. QUADRATT appeared for the Applicant Howson.
MR. J. GIBBONS appeared for the Applicants Hatch and Edmond.
At about the beginning of the 1970's, or possibly earlier, there came into existence a number of clubs in England calling themselves "Hells Angels". One such club was known as the Windsor Chapter of the Hells Angels. A number of other clubs in the South and West of England banded together and became known as the "All England Chapter". They wanted the Windsors to join the All England Chapter but the Windsors preferred their independence. There was bad feeling between the two clubs.
Over the Easter weekend in 1979, the Windsor Chapter arranged to go on an outing. They drove down to the New Forest and after spending Saturday night drinking, they camped in the New Forest at Ivy Wood camp site near Brockenhurst. There were 15 or 20 of them and they had come down in motor cars or on motor bikes.
About 7 o'clock on the morning of Sunday, 15th April, they were attacked by about double the number of Hells Angels from the All England Chapter. It was a terrifying scene and described by an entirely independent witness, a Mr. Royce, who happened to be camping nearby in his mobile home. The attackers went in armed with every kind of weapon from guns to staves. In the course of the attack, the leader of the Windsor Chapter was shot three times by a revolver and another of the Windsors was shot in the back with a shotgun. Another had his skull fractured with an axe and others received injuries as a result of being struck and beaten by pick-axe handles and similar weapons. The attack came as a complete surprise to the Windsors and it was over in a very few minutes. As they left the scene, one of the attackers fired a shot-gun at Mr. Royce. The attackers then made off on the motor cycles and in the cars by which they had come.
It was the prosecution's case that this was a planned punitive attack organised by the All Englands' upon the Windsors because they refused to join the All England Chapter. The prosecution case was that this attack had probably been conceived at a meeting of the Wessex Chapter from whom most of the defendants came, during the course of their meeting in the Lion public house at Ash on Good Friday. On the Saturday, a summons went out to All England members in other parts of the country to rendezvous at the South Coast Angels' clubhouse at Shirley Road, Southampton. The attackers had spent the night at this clubhouse and, in the early hours of the morning, set off in a convoy of motor cars and motor cycles to carry out this very serious assault.
Eventually, as a result of an extensive police investigation, 29 defendants faced trial before Mr. Justice Sheldon and a jury at Winchester Crown Court. Although the indictment as originally drawn contained six counts in all, in these applications, we are concerned with only two counts: count 2, which charged all the defendants with the offence of riot and assault, and count 3, which charged the applicant Kenneth Edward Littlefield and another man, Royston Francis Tomkins, with attempted murder. Six of the defendants pleaded guilty to the count of riot and assault, five were found not guilty on that count and the remainder were convicted. Littlefield was found guilty of attempted murder and Tomkins was acquitted. We have before us applications for leave to appeal against the convictions and sentences. We will deal with the applications against conviction first.
LITTLEFIELD
The trial commenced on the 14th January, 1980, and the jury did not retire to consider their verdicts until the 17th March, and they did not return their last verdict until the 21st March. In all, the trial lasted 49 working days. The first ground upon which Littelfield seeks leave to appeal is based upon the submission that the trial lasted so long that any verdict returned at the end of it must be considered unsafe and unsatisfactory. In support of this submission, Mr. Hollis upon the decision in R v. Novac, 65 Cr.App.R. 107, in which this court stressed the difficulties inherent in long trials and the desirability that, wherever possible, the indictment should not be overloaded either as to the number of counts or as to the number of defendants. Mr. Hollis says that the trial should have been split up and the defendants should have been tried in groups and, at the very least, Littlefield and Tomkins should have been tried separately for the attempted murder from their co-defendants.
This is not a matter that went by default; it was carefully considered by the prosecution and the position was reviewed by the trial judge at a pre-trial review attended by counsel at which consideration was given to the possibility of a number of trials of different groups of defendants. In the exercise of his discretion, the judge decided against this course. We think he was justified in taking the course he did. Although it was inevitable that he would have to handle a long trial with so many defendants, the issues raised in the trial were not complicated. The case against each defendant depended, in essence, either upon the fact that they had been identified by some of the Windsor Chapter who had been attacked or, alternatively, upon admissions that they had made to the police in some cases, or both types of evidence. There was a common theme running through the defence of many of the defendants to the effect that although they had gone to the scene of the attack, they were the last to get there and it was all over by the time they arrived. This Obviously could not be true in all cases as it would have meant there would have been nobody to carry out the attack. However, if the case had been broken up into separate groups such a specious defence run by one small group, false thought it undoubtedly was, might have carried considerable weight with the jury who would not know what was being said by all the others who had been involved.
In the opinion of this court, the judge was justified in taking the view that the interests of justice demanded that one jury reviewed the whole of the circumstances leading up to the attack and the participation of all of those who were alleged to have taken part in it. In an admirable summing-up, the judge directed the jury in clear and simple terms on the relevant law, and dealt individually with the case of each defendant in order to assist the jury to concentrate on the evidence relevant to that particular defendant. Despite the length of the trial, we are satisfied that the issues were clearly and fairly laid before the jury and we find nothing to lead us to the conclusion that the resulting verdicts were unsafe or unsatisfactory.
Secondly, it is submitted that the learned judge misdirected the jury as to the offence of attempted murder. The principal direction commences on page 44 of Volume 4 of the transcript and it reads as follows: "So I come to count 3, which is the count that charg Littlefield and Tomkins with the attempted murder of Richard Sharman. There is no doubt that Sharman was shot three times –could be four but the medical evidence suggests that it is more likely to be three - by a man armed with a .45 revolver; twice in the body, one bullet narrowly missing a vital artery and lodging in his spine and one at even closer quarters in the back of the head, a shot but for the mercy of providence, you may think, would have penetrated his skull and killed him. Members of the jury, can you have any doubt whatever that the man who fired any of those shots, or both of them if it is more than one –no suggestions the bullets all came from one gun –attempted and intended to kill him? Mr. Hollis has suggested that that is not the inevitable conclusion. Members of the jury, it is entirely for you. It is not suggested that it was Littlefield or Tomkins that fired that gun. The case against them is based on wider grounds. It is this, where several men set out together each of them aware that one or more of them is or are armed with an offensive weapon such as a revolver or shotgun with the common intention that one or more' of those weapons will be used to kill a particular individual or one or other of a particular group of individuals, if one of them tries but fails to kill such an intended victim knowingly, as he did, each of those who set out with him with that intention and who still intended that it should be put into effect would be guilty of attempted murder whether or not he himself was armed. As regards Littlefield and Tomkins on this particular question what it is suggested is that Littlefield was vice president of the Wessex and Tomkins was sergeant at arms and the unidentified gunman and may be others set out that morning, the gunman armed with a 45 revolver, Tomkins and one or more of the others armed with shotguns with B.B. shot, set out with...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
The Queen v Osagie Ehi-Palmer
...end in his presence. This may be because of genuine or intermittent illness of the defendant (as in ( R v. Abrahams 18950 21 VLR 343 and R v. Howson (1981) 74 Cr App R 172); or misbehaviour (as in R v. Berry (1897) 104 LT Jo 110 and R v Browne (1906) 70 JP 472); or because the defendant has......
-
R v Jones
...the end in his presence. This may be because of genuine but intermittent illness of the defendant (as in R v Abrahams (1895) 21 VLR 343 and R v Howson (1981) 74 CrAppR 172); or misbehaviour (as in R v Berry (1897) 104 LT Jo 110 and R v Browne (1906) 70 JP 472); or because the defendant has ......
- Eastman v R
-
R v Chute (No 4)
...R v Chute (No 3) [2017] ACTSC 409 R v Edwards [2009] HCA 20; 83 ALJR 717 R v Glennon (1992) 173 CLR 592 R v Hallocoglu (1992) 29 NSWLR 67 R v Howson (1981) 74 Cr App R 172 R v Jones (1998) 72 SASR 281 R v Jones (No 2) [1972] 1 WLR 887 R v Richardson [2016] ACTSC 22; 307 FLR 8 R v WRC [200......