R v McKenna
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1960 |
| Year | 1960 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
Jury - Coercion - Judge, by - Criminal law - Threat to jury to keep all night if no verdict within ten minutes - Effect. - Criminal Law - Accessory after the fact - Accessory to accessory - Charge of assisting principal felon - Assistance to accessory to principal felon - Whether indirect assistance to principal. - Criminal Law - Court of Criminal Appeal - Proviso to section 4 (1) - Coercion of jury - Whether proviso applicable -
It is a cardinal principle of criminal law that, in considering their verdict, a jury should deliberate in complete freedom, uninfluenced by any promise and unintimidated by any threat; for they stand between the subject and the Crown and are one of the defences of personal liberty.
At the trial of three defendants, one of whom was charged with larceny, and the other two as accessories after the fact, the judge, after the jury had been considering their verdict for some two hours, ordered that they be brought back into court and said to them:
“In ten minutes I shall leave this building and if, by that time, you have not arrived at a conclusion in this case you will have to be kept all night and we will resume this matter at quarter to twelve tomorrow.”
The jury retired again and six minutes later brought in verdicts of Guilty. The evidence against all the defendants was cogent. On appeal, in which the prosecution, inter alia, invited the court to apply the proviso to section 4 (1) of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907F1:—
Held, that the convictions must be quashed. It was of fundamental importance that in their deliberations a jury should be free to take such time as they felt they needed (subject to the right of the judge to discharge them if protracted consideration still produced disagreement) and, although the evidence was such that any jury would have been amply justified in finding the defendants guilty, it would not be right to apply the proviso to section 4 (1); the principle at stake was of more importance than the case itself.
Held, further, that the trial was not a nullity in the true sense of the word; that, therefore, the court could not, as an alternative, order a venire de novo.
A person who, knowing of a felony, assists not the principal felon but an accessory after the fact, may indirectly assist the principal felon and can thereby be guilty of himself being an accessory after the fact in respect of the same felony.
APPEALS against conviction.
The appellants, Arthur William Busby, Charles Alexander McKenna and William James McKenna, were convicted at Nottingham Assizes before Stable J. on counts in an indictment charging Busby with the larceny of a number of television and radio sets and other electrical equipment from a motor-van, and of taking and driving away the van without the owner's consent in the county of Nottingham, and Charles and William McKenna with being accessories after the fact in that they knowingly received, comforted, harboured, assisted and maintained Busby and three other named persons.
The trial began on Monday, November 23, 1959, and at the outset the jury were informed that the court could not sit on the Wednesday afternoon, but would rise at one p.m. The court sat late on the Monday and Tuesday, and on the morning of Wednesday, November 25, the judge began his summing-up. At about mid-day he explained to the jury the procedural rules, telling them that once they had retired they could not separate until a verdict had been arrived at, and said that he had to go to London by a certain train, which would mean that he would have to leave the court at about one p.m., and that if they felt that they could not arrive at a verdict before then, he could break off his summing-up and conclude it when he returned at 11.45 on the following morning. After discussion, the foreman of the jury informed the judge that they would require more than three-quarters of an hour to reach a verdict, whereupon the judge, having said that he would catch a later train, finished his summing-up. The jury retired at 12.20 p.m. At 2.20 they returned, asking the judge two questions: first, whether it was possible for William James McKenna to be an accessory after the fact by wittingly helping an accessory after the fact, to which the judge replied: “Yes”; and, secondly, whether, if they were convinced by the evidence that Busby was driving the van in the county of Cambridge, in what way could the indictment be altered, as to which the judge said that it could not be altered at all and that it charged two offences, one, taking an active part in stealing and taking the contents of the van, and the other, driving the van without the lawful authority or permission or knowledge of the owner.
The jury retired at 2.23 and returned to the court at 2.38, when the judge said:
“I have disorganised my travel...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- R v Maharaj; and other appeals
- Pendakwa Raya; Teng Boon How
-
Berry v The Queen
... ... 349 , C.A ... Reg. v. Foxford [ 1974 ] N.I. 181 ... Reg. v. Grant and Hewitt ( 1971 ) 12 J.L.R. 585 ... Reg. v. Hall ( 1958 ) 43 Cr.App.R. 29 ... Reg. v. Maguire [ 1992 ] 2 W.L.R. 767 ; [ 1992 ] 2 All E.R. 433 , C.A ... Reg. v. McKenna [ 1960 ] 1 Q.B. 411 ; [ 1960 ] 2 W.L.R. 306 ; [ 1960 ] 1 All E.R. 326 , C.C.A ... Reg. v. Marr ( 1989 ) 90 Cr.App.R. 154 , C.A ... Reg. v. Purvis and Hughes ( 1968 ) 13 W.I.R. 507 ... Reg. v. Spencer [ 1987 ] A.C. 128 ; [ 1986 ] 3 W.L.R. 348 ; ... ...
-
Attorney General Appellant v Michael Spicer Alexander Benedetto Respondent
...undue pressure. It is of fundamental importance that, in their deliberations, a jury should be free to take such time as they needed. [ R -v- McKenna [1960] 1 QB 411 C.A Eng.] That principle was not breached in the instant matter. 99 In my judgment, given the aforementioned circumstances, t......