R v Richards
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE WINN |
| Judgment Date | 03 February 1967 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1967] EWCA Crim J0203-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 2669/66 |
[1967] EWCA Crim J0203-1
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Winn
Mr. Justice MacKenna
and
Mr. Justice Willis
No. 2669/66
MR. MONTAGUE WATERS appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. D. PAIBA appeared on behalf of the Crown.
This Appellant appeals by leave of the full Court from two convictions of housebreaking with intent which he sustained on the 16th August of last year at South East London Sessions; he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment on each of two counts concurrent, 12 months in all.
The full Court gave leave to appeal on one point and one point only, and that was whether or not in the circumstances of this case a certain purported confession or statement containing guilty admissions, which undoubtedly this man did make to a police officer, was admissible evidence against him in his trial. It really is not necessary to go into the matter at any great length. The point which was thrown up by the case was one which the Applicant, as he then was, not unnaturally failed himself to take but one which the Court, in the discharge of its function to have regard to all the possible grounds of appeal which may be possessed by a person seeking the assistance of the Court, took in his favour. It may be stated in this way. It is of course clear law and has been for generations in this country, for reasons which were perhaps plainer when at one time men could not give evidence on their own behalf than now, that no statement which has been induced or which may have been induced by any promise or threat made by a person in authority is admissible evidence against the maker of the statement. It is now clear, further, that it is immaterial, if the inducement be made by the person in authority, whether or not it has any reference to any pending charge, any pending prosecution, or any potential prosecution. Whatever be the nature of the inducement so made and however trivial it may seem to the average man to have been, such an inducement will be at least capable of rendering the statement then made inadmissible; it will have that effect unless in a given case - and such cases do occur -it becomes plain beyond a reasonable doubt that it did not operate at all upon the mind of the person to whom it was made, I refer only in passing and without going into the reasoning of the cases to the decision in Cleary, the decision in Smith, and the decision in the Commissioners of Custom and Excise v. Hartz, recently pronounced in their Lordships' House It is for consideration whether the decision of this Court in Priestley - a fairly recent decision - is wholly consonant with those decisions.
Hero a police officer said to the Appellant at a time when already a number of questions had boon asked and he had boon pressed somewhat about his movements during the material afternoon, and had made lying replies, "It would bo bettor if you were to tell us the truth" and a statement was then made. Clearly that was something...
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R v Northam
...by the predicament in which they find themselves. So it may have been right to err on the safe side." 14 In giving judgment in the case of Richards, I myself said that there was a distinction, as it seemed to the Court in that case, to be kept in mind always between inducement by persons no......
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R v Pollock
... ... Eleven of the Judges thought that this case was similar to R v. Hickman and that they could not with propriety depart from that decision, Mr. Justice Holroyd, Mr. Justin Bayley and Chief Baron Richards expressly stated that, in their opinion, Hickman's case was rightly decided because a charge of this description carried with it such a degree of fear as might be expected to overcome a firm and constant mind. Baron Graham on the hand hand, thought Hickman's case was not rightly decided, but he ... ...
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State v Gobin; State v Griffith
...said: “…. no departure should be made from what has always been the settled practice in these matters.”; in Leslie Charles Richards (1967) 51 Cr. App. R. 266, the judge held “the trial within a trial”, but at the end of it ruled that he would leave it to the jury to decide whether or not t......
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