R v Jones (Steven Martin)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,I |
| Judgment Date | 24 July 1996 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1996] EWCA Crim J0717-11 |
| Docket Number | No. 95/0059/X3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 24 July 1996 |
[1996] EWCA Crim J0717-11
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
The Strand
London WC2
The Lord Chief Justice of England
(Lord Bingham of Cornhill)
Mr Justice Ognall
and
Mrs Justice Smith
No. 95/0059/X3
MR MARTIN THOMAS OBE QC and MR WYNN LLOYD JONES appeared on behalf of THE APPELLANT
MR ANTHONY GEE QC and MR MICHAEL TAYLOR appeared on behalf of THE CROWN
Wednesday 17 July 1996
Late on 3 January 1993, Mrs Madallin Jones suffered severe head injuries from which she died. Her husband, the appellant Steven Martin Jones, was charged with her murder. He stood trial in the Crown Court at Caernarfon before Kennedy J and a jury and on 25 November 1993 was convicted. He now appeals against that conviction with the leave of the full Court.
The dead and battered body of Mrs Jones was found, partly immersed in a stream, close to her damaged Metro car at about 10.40 pm on 3 January. The front and side windows of the car were shattered, and the driver's door was open. To the inexperienced eye, it might have appeared that Mrs Jones' injuries had been sustained in a motor accident. But police investigating the scene were suspicious that the accident was not genuine and that Mrs Jones had not suffered her injuries in a motor accident. Close to the car there was found in the undergrowth a lump hammer: this had a short, stubby handle some 19cms long, and a heavy, roughly rectangular head. In all, the hammer weighed some 4 1/2lbs.
Dr Wayte, an experienced Home Office pathologist, was called urgently to the scene of the accident, which he reached at about 0420 on 4 January 1993. At about 0545 on the same morning he performed a post mortem on the body of Mrs Jones at the Maelor General Hospital, Wrexham where the body lay. He made two principal findings:
(1) Just above the left eyebrow of the deceased there was an elongated laceration 4cms in length and 2cms in width which he described as "grooved". From this point two fracture lines ran down the left-hand side of the skull, extending to the base.
(2) On the opposite side of the scalp was an area of bruising, suggesting that the impact from the left frontal area had been transmitted across the skull and that the right posterior scalp tissues had probably contacted some other surface.
Dr Wayte concluded that the cause of death was diffuse brain trauma in association with subdural and subarachnoid haemorrhage due to fractures of the skull due to blunt trauma to the left side of the head.
Dr Wayte formed the clear conclusion that the death was not the result of injuries sustained in a motor accident. He judged that the frontal wound had been caused by a rod-like instrument with rounded margins, such instrument being between 1 and 1 1/2" in diameter. The wound appeared to him to have been caused to the left side of the head by a blow struck from the front by a right- handed individual. During his post mortem a policeman's staff was produced, which he matched to the wound; he considered that it fitted perfectly.
On 6 January 1993, Dr Wayte was shown the lump hammer already described. He formed the opinion that it could not have caused the wound. There was in his opinion no relationship between the shape of the wound and the outline of the head of the hammer, and had the hammer been used there would in his view have been a depressed fracture at the site of impact. His opinion was that the hammer had played no part in causing the death of Mrs Jones.
On 12 January 1993, Dr Lawler, another experienced Home Office pathologist, instructed on behalf of the appellant, visited the mortuary in which Mrs Jones' body lay and carried out a second post mortem. His conclusions were in all essentials the same as those of Dr Wayte. He dismissed the suggestion that the deceased had died in a road traffic accident. The size and nature of the external laceration and bruising indicated to him that the frontal injury had been caused by an instrument cylindrical in shape. His opinion was that the scalp bruising diametrically opposite to the large frontal laceration suggested that the deceased's head had been in contact with a firm and unyielding surface at the time that the injury had been inflicted.
On 20 January 1993, the appellant made a voluntary statement. Up to then he had resolutely denied any involvement in his wife's death and had maintained the fiction of a motor accident. But in his statement he admitted that a good deal of what he had told the police in his interviews had not been the truth. He stated:
"Following my return home from work on the night of Sunday 3rd January 1993 my wife and I had a violent quarrel downstairs. She accused me of infidelity and admitted to having an affair herself. It was a bitter hurtful row and ended in a struggle. My wife had picked up a hammer and in the course of the struggle I took it from her. We both fell over through the open patio door. I then saw she was lying still and bleeding heavily from the head. There was no signs of life and I realised that she dead [ sic]. At first I was numb, then I panicked and decided to fake a traffic accident. I carried my wife to her car and drove about for a while before deliberately driving into the wall on Tinkersdale. I then pulled my wife from the car and eventually walked away…."
The effect of this statement was communicated to Dr Wayte. He expressed the opinion that the wound to the left side of Mrs Jones' head had not been caused by a hammer, nor (referring to the patio) by a fall onto a concrete surface or the narrow edge of a concrete slab or step.
The appellant's new version of events was communicated to Dr Lawler, and on 15 July 1993 he attended a conference with the appellant's legal advisers at which the possible causes of Mrs Jones' injuries were discussed in detail and a lump hammer of the type which the appellant said had been involved in the case was examined. Dr Lawler advised that in his opinion the deceased's head injuries could not have been caused by the head of the hammer. In expressing that opinion, Dr Lawler expressly acknowledged the degree of force needed to cause the very serious fracture of the base of the skull which he had observed.
Dr Lawler's opinion plainly gave no support to the appellant's defence and provided no basis for challenging the opinion of Dr Wayte. The defence accordingly sought the assistance first of Professor Knight and then, when he proved unavailable as described below, of another Home Office pathologist, Dr Tapp. This doctor did not have the advantage enjoyed by Dr Wayte and Dr Lawler of examining Mrs Jones' body and observing the precise contours of her head injury. But on examination of the relevant reports (and, we assume, the photographs taken at the first post mortem) he shared the opinion already expressed by Dr Wayte and Dr Lawler.
Professor Bernard Knight is a Home Office pathologist and Professor of Forensic Pathology at the Wales Institute of Forensic Medicine. He was invited to act on 6 September 1993. It quickly became apparent, however, that he would be unable to testify at the trial fixed to begin on 16 November 1993, since he would be out of the country at the time. On 24 September 1993, a directions hearing took place before Pill J in Cardiff at which the appellant was represented by Mr David Poole QC. It is plain from the transcript of that hearing that Mr Poole did not seek an adjournment of the trial on the ground that Professor Knight would be unavailable for the trial. He accepted that Professor Knight's unavailability could readily be remedied by resorting to another pathologist. He said that the defence would be surprised and disappointed if they could not instruct another pathologist who would have a report ready for trial, and confirmed that the problem with Professor Knight was not that he was unable to prepare a report but that he was unable to attend the trial. The judge did not understand that any application was being made to vacate the trial date, and did not regard the unavailability of Professor Knight as a valid reason for vacating the fixture. He did, however, indicate that if the defence encountered real difficulties they could attend before a judge in Chester to explain them. Counsel indicated that if it became necessary, then the defence would make application. No such application was ever made.
At the trial, Dr Wayte was called for the Crown. He gave evidence in accordance with the opinion he had consistently expressed. He considered that a truncheon which had been found in the boot of the appellant's car could have caused the grooved, rounded laceration on Mrs Jones' forehead. He did not accept that the wound could have been caused by the lump hammer. In cross-examination, Mr Poole explored with Dr Wayte the possibility that Mrs Jones' frontal injury could have been caused by contact between the front of her head and the handle of the hammer. Dr Wayte replied:
"The only way that the hammer could have caused that injury would be in a situation where it was almost as if she had been used as a hammer, held by her legs, and thrown at the hammer. It would have to be done with such force that she would have to be swung and pushed very hard against it".
Dr Wayte would not accept that the short handle of this hammer could itself be wielded with sufficient force to cause the injury which he had observed.
The appellant gave evidence and described how he had returned home on 3 January 1993 to find his wife standing by the open patio door smoking a cigarette. He recounted how the quarrel between him and his wife had begun and then (as summarised by the trial judge in his summing up) continued:
"He...
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