R v Portsmouth Crown Court ex parte Dpp
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE LLOYD |
| Judgment Date | 29 April 1993 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1993] EWHC J0429-3 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 29 April 1993 |
[1993] EWHC J0429-3
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Crown Office List Before: Lord Justice Lloyd Mr. Justice Blofeld
MR. NIGEL SEED (Instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared on behalf of the Applicant
MISS HELEN JAMES (Instructed by Wills Chandler, Basingstoke, Hampshire) appeared on behalf of the Mr. Andrew Saxon
MISS CLAIRE MONTGOMERY (Instructed by the Treasury Solicitors) appeared as Amicus curiae
( )
Thursday 29th April 1993
In this case the Director of Public Prosecutions seeks an order of certiorari to quash the decision of the Crown Court sitting at Portsmouth, allowing an appeal by Mr. Andrew Saxon from his conviction by magistrates.
The facts were that at 5.34 pm on 3rd September 1991, two police officers were on duty in Oakridge Road, Basingstoke. They saw a green Ford Cortina, which they recognised as belonging to Mr. Saxon. The prosecution case was that Mr. Saxon was the driver and that he was accompanied by a woman. The police officers knew that
Mr. Saxon was disqualified. They followed the Cortina into a cul-de-sac. They saw Mr. Saxon standing by the driver's door, and the woman by the passenger door. They both ran off. The following day, one of the officers saw Mr. Saxon and asked him about the incident. Mr. Saxon denied driving the car. He said it was no longer his, and that he had just sold it.
In due course, Mr. Saxon was charged with driving whilst disqualified and other related offences. The hearing before the Basingstoke Magistrates took place on 22nd January 1992. The police officers gave evidence for the prosecution. The evidence for the defence was given by
Mr. Saxon, Mr. and Mrs. Bicknell and Miss Tracey Morrison, the woman said to have been in the car with him. The defence case was that Mr. Saxon had been with Mr. and Mrs. Bicknell all day. Miss Morrison denied having been in the car. The first she had known of the incident was when she was challenged by one of the police officers as she left home at about 5.35 pm on 3rd September. The magistrate found the case proved, and subsequently sentenced Mr. Saxon to 6 months' imprisonment.
Mr. Saxon then appealed. The case came on for hearing at the Crown Court at Portsmouth on 25th February. The prosecution evidence was as before, Mr. Saxon and Mrs Bicknell gave evidence again for the defence, but Miss Morrison did not give evidence. Instead, Mr. Malcolm Dickman told the court that he had been the driver on the day in question. When he saw the police, he ran away because he knew that the car was untaxed and was uncertain whether he was, in any event, insured to drive the car. He said he had been alone and had not been accompanied by a woman. The Crown Court must have felt some doubt as to the identity of the driver, so Mr. Saxon's appeal was allowed.
Subsequently however, the police made enquiries. They discovered that Mr. Dickman, who worked as a supervisor for a firm of office cleaners, had clocked in for work at 5.30 pm on 3rd September. So he could not have been driving the car when the incident occurred. Mr. Dickman was interviewed on two occasions. He came near to admitting that his evidence had been false, but he never made an actual admission. In those circumstances, Mr. Seed for the Director, submits that the decision of the Crown Court allowing the appeal ought to be quashed. He accepts that the false evidence given by Mr. Dickman may not have been procured by Mr. Saxon, at any rate directly, since Mr. Saxon was by then in custody. But, he says, the inference must be that it was procured by Miss Morrison on Mr. Saxon's behalf; hence the decision not to call Miss Morrison at the Crown Court. Mr. Seed says this was a clear case of perjury. Even though there may not have been enough evidence to prosecute Mr. Dickman, the decision allowing the appeal ought not to be allowed to stand.
For Mr. Saxon, who intervenes in the case, Miss James advances a number of arguments. She points out that the decision of the Crown Court allowing Mr. Saxon's appeal has the same effect as an acquittal. She submits there has never yet been an acquittal by a court of summary jurisdiction which has been quashed by certiorari: see R.v. Simpson [1914] 1 KB 66. To accede to the present application would, she says, offend the rule against double jeopardy.
At first blush Miss James' argument has much to recommend it. But the cases show that it is illfounded. There is a well-established distinction between quashing an acquittal by magistrates, and quashing a decision of the Crown Court allowing an appeal from a conviction by magistrates. The distinction goes back a long way: see 11 Halsbury's Laws of England (3rd Edn) page 130. It is supported by a number of early authorities there cited. The reason for the distinction was explained by Donaldson LJ in R. v Wolverhampton Crown Court ex parte Crofts 1983 1 WLR 204 at page 207, he said:
"…in my judgment [the rule against double jeopardy] does not apply where a court is concerned with an acquittal by a Crown Court on appeal before justices, for this reason. If the Crown Court decision is quashed, and this will only occur when it is the beneficiary of the Crown Court decision who has been guilty of the fraud, the result will be not that the defendant is twice put in peril, but that he remains convicted as a result of the first and only occasion upon which he was put in peril. That seems to me to be the distinction between this case and R. v Simpson."
That passage was expressly approved by the House of Lords the following year in R. v Bournemouth Crown Court ex parte Weight (1984) 1 WLR 980. It is true, as Miss James pointed out, that Lord Fraser did not answer the question in the broad terms certified by the Divisional Court. But at...
To continue reading
Request your trial