R v Pommell
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 16 May 1995 |
| Date | 16 May 1995 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr Justice Mantell and Mr Justice Hooper
Crime - defence - duress of circumstances
The limited defence of duress of circumstance, developed in English law in relation to road traffic offences, was closely related to the defence of duress by threats and applied to all crimes except murder, attempted murder and some forms of treason.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment allowing the appeal of Fitzroy Derek Pommell against his conviction on October 27, 1993, following pleas of guilty on re-arraignment at Woolwich Crown Court (Judge Rucker) of possessing a prohibited weapon and ammunition without a firearms certificate, on which he was sentenced to 4 1/2 years imprisonment. A retrial was ordered.
Mr Christopher Johnston, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr James Dawson for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY, delivering the judgment of the court, said that at about 8am on June 4, 1993 police officers entered the appellant's home to execute a search warrant. He was found lying in bed with a loaded gun in his right hand.
He was arrested and in interview said that during the night someone had come to see him, carrying the gun with the intention of going to shoot some people because they had killed his friend. The appellant said that he had persuaded the man to give him the gun, which he took upstairs. He took the bullets out then put them back, having decided to wait until morning to give the gun to his brother to hand to the police.
After arraignment, prosecuting counsel said that he understood that what the defendant had said in interview would be the basis of the defence of necessity.
He drew the judge's attention to R v Martin (Colin)UNK ((1988) 88 Cr App R 343), where the court acknowledged that in extreme circumstances there could be a defence of necessity. Most commonly it arose when wrongful acts put pressure on the accused, but it could arise from other objective dangers threatening the accused or others, when it was conveniently referred to as "duress of circumstance".
Mr Justice Simon Brown, as he then was, had said: "The defence is available only if, from an objective standpoint, the accused can be said to be acting reasonably and proportionately in order to avoid a threat of death or serious injury."
The trial judge said that in his view necessity could not be an issue here "because assuming...
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Attorney General's Reference (No. 2 of 2004); R v Quayle; R v Wales; R v Taylor; R v Kenny
... ... ] 1 AllER 771 , HL(E) R v Hudson [ 1971 ] 2 QB 202 ;[ 1971 ] 2 WLR 1047 ;[ 1971 ] 2 All ER 244 ,C A R v Lockwood [ 2002 ] EWCA Crim 60 ,CA R v Martin (Colin) [ 1989 ] 1 All ER 652 ,C A R v Martin (David) [ 2000 ] 2 Cr App R 42 ,C A R v Parker ( 2000 ) 188 DLR ( 4 th) 385 R v Pommell [ 1995 ] 2 CrApp R 607 ,C A R v Rodger [ 1998 ] 1 CrApp R 143 ,C A R v SaÞ (Ali Ahmed) [ 2003 ] EWCA Crim 1809 ;[ 2004 ] 1 CrApp R 157 ,C A A B C D E F G H The WeeklyLaw Reports 25 November 2005 3643 R v Quayle (CA) R v Quayle(CA) [2005] 1 WLR [2005] 1 WLR ... R v Shayler [ 2001 ] ... ...
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