R v Machin
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE EVELEIGH |
| Judgment Date | 28 March 1980 |
| Neutral Citation | [1980] EWCA Crim J0328-3 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1980] EWCA Crim J0328-6 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 4607/B/79 |
| Date | 28 March 1980 |
[1980] EWCA Crim J0328-3
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Widgery)
Lord Justice Eveleigh
and
Mr. Justice O'Connor
No. 4607/B/79
MR. L. SCOTT appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. R.M. HARRISON appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On the 5th October, 1979 in the Doncaster Crown Court the Appellant was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of public justice and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. He now appeals against conviction.
On the 10th August, 1978 police officers on two separate occasions stopped a motor vehicle belonging to the Appellant. On each occasion it was driven by a different man and neither of them held a valid driving licence. On the 19th August the Appellant made written statements to the police claim that neither man had permission to use the vehicle. On the 10th September he went to the police station in connection with another matter. Two friends Brian Allen and Keith Shaw waited outside. In the station the Appellant dictated two statements to the effect that he had given the two men permission to drive the vehicle and that he was aware that they did not hold licences and were not covered by insurance.
Thereafter the prosecution case was as follows. When the Appellant left the police station ho asked Allen to punch him in the eye. This Allen did causing the eye to swell. The Appellant told Shaw and Mrs. Shaw that the police officers had hit him. Ho said the same thing to his own wife and told her to telephone the Doncaster police and lodge a complaint. This she did. He made similar allegations to a hospital doctor and to his solicitor. He went to a photographer who photographed the eye. He asked Allen to give evidence that the police had caused his injury and Allen agreed. Later however Allen changed his mind. The Appellant did not in fact collect the photograph.
The Appellant made a written statement admitting these facts, but in evidence ho said that the statement had been composed by the police and that he had signed it because the police had threatened to have his children put into care if he did not sign. He denied the facts alleged by the prosecution.
At the close of the prosecution case Counsel submitted to the judge that the facts alleged did not go far enough to amount to an attempt. Before this court ho has argued that to charge the offence of attempting to pervert the course of public justice is to charge an inchoate offence and that the jury should be given directions as to how they may decide whether or not an act is sufficiently proximate to amount to an attempt.
The learned judge addressed the jury as follows: "Now, what is attempting to pervert the course of public justice? It is this. It is the doing of an act or series of acts which have a tendency and are intended to pervert the course of justice. Now, as to the course of justice, members of the Jury, nobody disputes in this particular case that the course of justice in relation to the alleged offence of permitting this motor car to be used without insurance, nobody disputes that the course of justice had begun…"
He went on to say: "What is perverting the course of public justice? Members of the Jury it is the doing of something - or attempting to pervert the course of justice is doing something which is designed to lead to a false conclusion if the matter goes the whole way, and doing an act or a series of acts which have a tendency to, and are intended to pervert the course of public justice is this offence of attempting to pervert the course of public justice…." Counsel has also submitted that if his primary submission is wrong the acts alleged in any event did not have a tendency to pervert the course of justice.
In directing the jury as he did the learned judge was following the words of Baron Pollock in Regina v. Vreones (1891) 1 Q.B. 360. There the defendant had tampered with wheat, samples taken for submission to arbitrators to be appointed to determine any dispute that might arise as to the quality of the consignment. He was convicted of a common law misdemeanor of attempting by the manufacture of false evidence to mislead a judicial tribunal. At page 369 Baron Pollock said: "The real offence here is the doing of some act which has a tendency and is intended to pervert the administration of public justice."
In Regina v. Andrews (1973) Q.B. 422 the accused sought to persuade a Mr. Roeves, the defendant in a motor accident prosecution, to pay him to give false evidence at the trial. Lord Widgery, Lord Chief Justice, at page 425 said, referring to the case of Vreones: "So that the question arose whether it was possible to have an attempt to pervert the course of justice. Lord Coleridge C.J. said, at pp. 366, 367: 'The first count of the indictment in substance charges the defendant with the misdemeanor of attempting, by the manufacture of false evidence, to mislead a judicial tribunal which might come into existence. If the act itself of the defendant was completed, I cannot doubt that to manufacture false evidence for the purpose of misleading a judicial tribunal is a misdemeanor…. I think that an attempt to pervert the course of justice is in itself a punishable misdemeanor; and though I should myself have thought so on the grounds of sense and reason, there is also plenty of authority to show that it is a misdemeanor in point of law.'" Lord Widgery went on: "Accordingly, to produce false evidence with a view to misleading the court and perverting the course of justice is a substantive offence; an attempt so to act can be charged as such, and in our judgment an indictment so to act is also a charge known to the law and properly to be preferred in appropriate circumstances."
In Regina v. Rowell (1977) 65 Crim. App. R. 174 at page 180 Lord Justice Ormrod said: "The remaining grounds of appeal, namely duplicity in the indict-ment and the lack of sufficiently proximate acts to constitute an attempt, are both based, in our opinion, on the same false premise, which arises from the description of the offence as 'Attempting to pervert the course of public Justice.' The use of the word 'attempt' in this context is misleading. The appellant was not charged with an attempt to commit a substantive offence but with the substantive offence itself, which is more accurately, if less compen-diously, described in Pollock, B.'s words in Vreones which we have already quoted ….namely the doing of an act (or we would add a series of acts) which has a tendency and is intended to pervert the course of justice.
"Lord Coleridge at p. 367 in the same case said: 'I think that an attempt to pervert the course of justice is in itself a punishable misdemeanor…."
The law is concerned to forbid unlawful conduct which may result in a miscarriage of justice. There are specific common law offences such as embracery and personating a juryman. There are statutory offences, for example, the concealing of information for reward about an arrestable offence contrary to section 5(1) of the Criminal Law Act, 1967. On the other hand, as is pointed out in the Law Commission Report on offences relating to interference with the course of justice (Law Com. No. 96), the common law recognises a wide general offonce variously referred to as perverting or obstructing the course of justice, obstructing or interfering with the administration of justice, and defeating the due course, or the ends of justice. The particular acts or conduct in question may take many different forms including conduct that amounts in itself to some other criminal offence or attempt thereat in the strict sense of an inchoate offence. The gist of the offence is conduct which is intended to lead may lead/to a miscarriage of justice whether or not a miscarriage actually...
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