R v Pinfold
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE |
| Judgment Date | 22 February 1988 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1988] EWCA Crim J0222-4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 5890/R/80 |
| Date | 22 February 1988 |
[1988] EWCA Crim J0222-4
The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Lane)
Mr. Justice Boreham
and
Mr. Justice Pill
No. 5890/R/80
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
MR. M. MANSFIELD appeared on behalf of the Applicant
On 11th November 1981 this Court dismissed the appeal of Terence Joseph Pinfold against his conviction for murder.
He now applies for leave to appeal out of time against his conviction. That is the nature of this application on the face of it, but in fact, as counsel has been informed, this is an application for the Court to determine whether the Court has jurisdiction to entertain the application for leave to appeal at all, and there is no question at the moment of any decision on the merits either on the application for an extension of time or of course on the facts of the case.
It is a somewhat unusual situation and arises as follows. On 28th November 1980 at the Central Criminal Court before Mr. Justice May and a jury, Pinfold was convicted of the murder of a man called Terence Eve. The murder itself took place even further ago, namely some time late in 1974 between 31st October and 3rd November 1974. The murder was allegedly committed by a man called MacKenny assisted by another man called Childs, who figures largely in these proceedings.
Childs had pleaded guilty at an earlier stage not only to this murder, but to five other murders as well. He gave evidence for the prosecution on the trial of Pinfold and, put bluntly, it was very largely upon his evidence that Pinfold was convicted, not of being the man who actually wielded the blow or blows which killed Eve, but as the procurer of that murder.
The background to the murder there is no need for us to explore. It related to the business of manufacturing life jackets on the one hand, which was Pinfold's primary business, and the manufacturing of Teddy Bears, which was the interest primarily of Eve. However that does not matter.
As I say, at the trial Childs gave vital evidence against the applicant. The jury were instructed of the dangers of convicting Pinfold on the evidence of Childs, except in so far as they found Childs's evidence was corroborated by independent testimony. There was certain corroborative evidence suggested by the Crown and put forward on that basis by the Judge: the fact that Pinfold had not offered to pay compensation to the Eve family and the circumstances surrounding an alleged alibi. Once again there is no need for us to go into any detail about that.
The appeal, as already stated, was launched in the autumn of 1981. There was a suggestion even at that stage of the possibility of an application to call fresh evidence under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, once again arising in rather strange circumstances, because Childs apparently had written a personal letter to Mr. Mansfield, who today appears on behalf of Pinfold, but at the trial, so we are told, appeared successfully for MacKenny: MacKenny was acquitted. What Childs ha written to Mr. Mansfield had been that he, Childs, could, by giving further evidence,"smashthe prosecution". Mr. Mansfield very properly, as one would expect, had forwarded that letter to the proper quarters.
It was never in fact ascertained what it was that Childs was willing to say because he imposed certain conditions upon his willingness to give evidence, conditions which were plainly unacceptable, and in November 1981, as already indicated, the application to call Childs's evidence was rejected, leave was granted to pursue the appeal but the appeal was dismissed on other grounds.
In 1986 Childs came forward again, on this occasion directly in relation to the case of Pinfold. During the summer or autumn of 1986 Childs swore a number of affidavits, the effect of which was to say on oath that he had lied about Pinfold and was willing to give evidence as to that, in an attempt to show, according to him, that Pinfold was not responsible for procuring the murder.
The question therefore posed before us is whether the Court has power to hear an appeal by Pinfold when his first appeal was dismissed by this Court on 11th November 1981.
Section 1(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 reads as follows: "….. a person convicted of an offence on indictment may appeal to the Court of Appeal against his conviction."
Section 2(1) reads as follows: "Except as provided by this Act, the Court of Appeal shall allow an appeal against conviction if they think –(a) that the conviction should be set aside on the ground that under all circumstances of the case it is unsafe or unsatisfactory; (b) that the judgment of the court of trial should be set aside on the ground of a wrong decision of any question of law; or (c) that there was a material irregularity in the course of the trial, and in any other case shall dismiss the appeal."
So there is nothing there on the face of it which says in terms that one appeal is all that an appellant is allowed. But in the view of this Court, one must read those provisions against the background of the fact that it is in the interests of the public in general that there should be a limit or a finality to legal proceedings, sometimes put in a Latin maxim, but that is what it means in English. We have been unable to discover, nor have counsel been able to discover any situation in which a right of appeal couched in similar terms to that, has been construed as a right to pursue more than one appeal in one case.
So far as the Criminal Appeal Act is concerned, there are perhaps two possible exceptions, or apparent exceptions because that is what they are, to that rule: first of all, where the decision on the original appeal, if I may call it that, can be regarded as a nullity. This is more commonly applied where there has been an application to treat a notice of abandonment as a nullity. The second occasion, which may be simply an example of the first, is where, owing to some defect in the procedure the appellant has on the first appeal being dismissed suffered an injustice, where, for example, he has not been notified of the hearing of the appeal or counsel has been unable to attend, circumstances such as that.
Indeed that first exception is perhaps an indication that no one has ever considered that an appellant is entitled to appeal twice, because if there were such a right, then there would be no necessity to apply to set aside a notice of abandonment. The appellant would simply launch another appeal.
Mr....
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...if, from the written grounds of appeal and any supporting documents, it is clear beyond argument that the application cannot succeed." ii) R v Pinfold (1988) 87 Cr.App.R 15, [1988] QB 462. The applicant had been convicted in November 1980 of murder of a man called Eve on the basis of evide......
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Subject Index
...v Pendleton [2001] UKHL 66, [2002] 1Cr App R 441 .................................. 216R v Pinfold [1988] QB 462, CA .. 219, 220R v Pinfold and MacKenney [2003]EWCA Crim 3643, [2004] 2 Cr App R32 ........................................... 215–232R v Popat [1998] 2 Cr App R 208 ..... 112R v......
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Towards the Principled Reception of Expert Evidence of Witness Credibility in Criminal Trials
...for the proposition that an accused is limited to just one appealagainst conviction under the Criminal Appeal Act 1968: R v Pinfold [1988] QB 462, CA.24 R v Pinfold and MacKenney [2003] EWCA Crim 3643, [2004] 2 Cr App R 32 at 220 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EVIDENCE & PROOFEXPERT EVIDENCE ......
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The Right to Appeal and Workable Systems of Justice
...to the Court ofAppeal (Criminal Division), there is only the possibility of one appeal, or one application for leave toappeal (RvPinfold [1988] QB 462). Thereafter a new appeal is only available following a referencefrom the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Criminal Appeal Act 1995, s 9).S......