R v Marsh
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE MUSTILL |
| Judgment Date | 31 July 1985 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1985] EWCA Crim J0731-10 |
| Docket Number | No. 3988/B/384 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 31 July 1985 |
[1985] EWCA Crim J0731-10
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Mustill
Mr. Justice MacPherson
and
Mr. Justice Saville
No. 3988/B/384
MR. B. FORWARD appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. D. RADCLIFFE appeared on behalf of the Crown.
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
We have already intimated that we would allow this appeal against conviction. I will now give the reasons of the court for that decision.
On 22nd June 1984, Stephen Leslie Marsh was convicted on four counts of an indictment after a trial occupying four days. He had already pleaded guilty to a fifth count on the same indictment, having also pleaded guilty to another two counts on an indictment relating to antecedent offences.
In due course he applied for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. Both applications were refused by the single judge. He thereupon renewed his application to the Full Court for leave to appeal against conviction upon grounds settled by counsel, comprising 17 grounds upon which it was said that the trial judge had committed irregularities in the course of the trial, and that he had made nine errors in his direction to the jury. In the event the Full Court found it unnecessary to hear all 26 grounds argued out, it being found sufficient to grant leave to appeal upon one single issue to which we shall later refer.
In the event, Mr. Forward, who had appeared throughout for the appellant, found it appropriate on the hearing of the substantive appeal to put forward only five of the grounds originally relied upon.
The circumstances in which the appellant Stephen Marsh (who was also known as Stephen Skeggs) came before the crown court may be summarised as follows. The appellant, who had three previous convictions for driving whilst disqualified and was within a few days of completing a period of disqualification from driving, was seen by a police officer on 12th May 1983 whilst driving a motor vehicle in Harlow. He ran away but was subsequently arrested. At first he admitted that he had been the driver but he subsequently retracted this, relying upon a statement by a man named Stephen Cooper who provided him with an alibi. This plank of his defence disappeared on 21st December 1983, when Cooper made a further statement retracting the alibi.
When the matter came to a trial before His Honour Judge Watling in the crown court, the appellant advanced a defence to the effect that for scandalous personal reasons the police officer was giving perjured evidence against him. At this point the jury was discharged. The allegations against the police officer were investigated and found to be without substance. Ultimately the appellant was rearraigned, again before Judge Watling, and on this occasion he pleaded guilty.
This count, and a related count alleging breach of a previous probation order, were the subject of the first indictment to which we have already referred. The fact that Judge Watling consented to preside over the second trial, having taken part in the first, was one of the grounds of appeal against the appellant's conviction on the other indictment. This ground is no longer pursued.
At about the same time, a Mrs. Patricia Daley, who had been living with the appellant, left him and went to stay with a married couple named Armstrong. This led the appellant to make a series of telephone calls to the Armstrongs, as a result of which they arranged for their telephone numbers to be changed. On some occasion, the particulars of which do not appear from the papers now before the court, the appellant caused damage to the clothes of Mrs. Daley which she had left behind at his residence. According to the evidence of Cooper, she had damaged some clothes of his as well. This led to an appearance by the appellant before the Harlow Justices on 12th January 1984, when the appellant received a sentence of three months' imprisonment suspended for 12 months in respect of the damage to Mrs. Daley's clothes.
On the following day an incident occurred when Mr. Armstrong, who was driving in a motor vehicle with Mr. Cooper as passenger, pulled out into a main road some distance behind a car driven by the appellant who had, as his passenger, a Mrs. Gilman, a lady with whom by then he had commenced to live. It was common ground at the subsequent trial that the appellant briskly reversed his car so as to strike the front of Mr. Armstrong's car, causing considerable damage.
Only three days later, the appellant and Mrs. Gilman went to the home of Mr. Cooper, where certain property of the appellant was being stored, the two men having previously been friends. A quarrel took place between the two men and blows were exchanged, causing extensive bruising to Mr. Cooper and rendering him unconscious. The appellant went home. Police officers called and eventually he let them in. According to the evidence of the officers he said: "Steve and me had a little trouble and I had to give him a spanking Well he got a bit lippy so I had to hit him." At first Cooper told the police that he did not wish to make a complaint, but he subsequently changed his mind.
About two weeks later the appellant was in trouble with the Armstrongs again. He arrived in his car outside a block of flats where the Armstrongs lived. There was the sound of screeching brakes. The Armstrongs looked out of the window and saw that the appellant's car had collided with Mr. Armstrong's parked car. According to the evidence from the Armstrongs, the appellant was sitting in the car laughing.
On the evidence thus summarised five charges were brought. Counts 1 and 2 related to the occasion when the appellant backed into Mr. Armstrong's car. The offences charged were reckless driving and the intentional or reckless causing of damage. The appellant's answer was that he acted in self-defence. He said that he saw Mr. Armstrong's car pull in behind him with three men inside. He saw the doors opening and men getting out, with the glimpse of a weapon. If he had not immobilised the other car he and Mrs. Gilman would have been the victims of an attack.
The fight with Mr. Cooper was the subject of the third count, which charged an assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Here again the appellant raised a case of self-defence. According to the appellant, Mr. Cooper had picked up a club hammer and raised it above his head, so as to put the appellant in fear of an attack.
Finally the incident outside the Armstrongs' flat gave rise to counts 4 and 5, the one charging criminal damage to property and the other reckless driving. The appellant pleaded guilty to count 5. His defence to count 4 was that the collision was an accident. He had received a telephone call from the Armstrongs threatening his children, added to which he saw the Armstrongs making insulting gestures at him through the window of their flat. He lost his temper and his concentration and drove very badly, but he did not intend to run into the other car.
In the result, as we have said, the appellant was convicted on all the four counts to which he had pleaded not guilty. Of the five grounds of appeal pursued in argument before us, two may be dealt with very briefly. The first relates to the manner in which the learned judge directed the jury on the issue of self-defence. It is said that there should have been added a further direction in relation to what was called justification. We see nothing in this complaint. It was unnecessary and undesirable to complicate the matter in this way. The direction accurately stated the manner in which the issue was to be approached. Nor do we see any substance in the ancillary complaint that the jury should have been directed as to the possibility of a mistake on the part of the appellant when the events took place which were the subject of the full indictment, about the intentions of the people in the other car. It is said that the learned judge should have instructed the jury to consider the state of the appellant's mind; but so he did, when he invited them to consider whether it might be that the appellant's account of being in fear was true and if so whether it amounted to a lawful excuse.
The second ground of complaint relates to the evidence of a lorry driver, Mr. Fish. It is said that in his closing address to the jury counsel for the prosecution had made a mistake about something said by Mr. Fish, who was an eye witness, concerning the number of people in the Armstrong's car, and that the learned judge failed to put this right in his summing-up. We are not satisfied that any such mistake was made, or that if it was...
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