R v Spiby
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 12 March 1990 |
| Date | 12 March 1990 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Taylor, Mr Justice Mars-Jones and Mr Justice Waite
Evidence - admissibility - computer printout
Where a computer installed in a hotel recorded, by mechanical means and without the intervention of a human mind, information about telephone calls made by hotel guests, evidence of printouts from that computer was admissible as real evidence, and was distinguishable from the documentary evidence to which sections 68 and 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 applied.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, courts would presume that such a computer was in working order at the material time.
The Court of Appeal so held when dismissing the appeal of John Eric Spiby against his conviction on February 24, 1989 in Portsmouth Crown Court (Mr Recorder Moriarty, QC and a jury) of an offence contrary to section 170(2) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 of being knowingly concerned, with others, in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on importation of a class B controlled drug, cannabis resin, imposed by section 3(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. He was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment.
Mr Victor Williamson, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr Paul O'Donovan for the Crown.
LORD JUSTICE TAYLOR said that for the purposes of tha appeal the most important evidence in the case related to some telephone calls made from a hotel in Cherbourg, in which was fixed a computerised machine which...
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