R v Watson (Campbell)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | "JUDGE FIGGIS,LORD JUSTICE CUMMING-BRUCE |
| Judgment Date | 12 February 1980 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1980] EWCA Crim J0212-6 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Docket Number | No. 3547/A/79 |
| Date | 12 February 1980 |
[1980] EWCA Crim J0212-6
Lord Justice Cumming-Bruce
Mr. Justice Thompson
and
Mr. Justice Smith
No. 3547/A/79
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
MR. P. DIGNEY appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. R. GERMAIN appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On 27th July 1979 in the Crown Court at Kingston, His Honour Judge Figgis presiding, the appellant Was convicted of four counts on the first of two indictments after a trial lasting sixteen days. On the same day he pleaded guilty to five counts on the second indictment.
He was sentenced as follows: First Indictment (No. 790656): counts 1 to 3, burglary, three years' imprisonment (concurrent); count 5, theft, six months' imprisonment (consecutive). Second Indictment (No. 790891): counts 1, 3 and 5, burglary, three years' imprisonment (concurrent); count 2, theft, six months' imprisonment (concurrent); count 4, taking a conveyance without the owner's consent, six months' imprisonment (consecutive) and licence endorsed. He had 26 other offences taken into consideration (8 burglaries, 3 thefts, 7 taking a -conveyance without the owner's consent, 2 attempted burglaries and 6 attempted thefts).
He appeals against conviction by leave of the single Judge who also referred to the full Court his application for leave to appeal against sentence.
The first ground of appeal against conviction is: "The Judge was wrong in law in holding that he had no power to rule on the admissibility of evidence at the end of the prosecution case because he had ruled on it in the trial within a trial, even though there were relevant matters that came to light in the trial that had not done so in the trial within a trial."
The evidence against the appellant upon the counts upon which he was convicted was evidence that goods stolen in the three burglaries and by the theft alleged in count 5 had been found partly in his house and partly in the house or garden shed of two co-accused in which he was alleged to have been living for part of the material time; parol admissions made by him to police officers investigating the offences; and two written statements signed by him.
He gave evidence giving an explanation of thepresence of the stolen goods at the two addresses where they were found. In his evidence he said that the alleged oral admissions had been concocted by the police officers who gave evidence about them, and his case, supported by his evidence, was that he had been induced against his will to sign the alleged written statements by promises of favour. These promises included promises that he would be given bail, that there would be no charge arising from the fact that a shotgun had been found in one of the two relevant addresses, and that no proceedings, save a charge of handling 14 belts, would be taken against one Janet Laver with whom the appellant was cohabiting, in spite of the fact that the investigating police officers had at the time evidence implicating her in other offences of dishonesty with which she was in fact charged many months later.
When Detective Constable Packington was in the witness box, counsel for the appellant having challenged the voluntary character of the two written statements, there was a trial within a trial. Detective Constable Packlngton and Detective Sergeant Massey gave evidence and were cross-examined. The appellant gave evidence describing the inducements alleged. The learned Judge ruled that the statements were voluntary.
The trial proceeded in thepresence of the jury. When Detective Constable Packlngton was in the witness box counsel for co-accused Janet Laver cross-examined him, and in his answers to those questions gave certain evidence. Counsel for the appellant regarded that evidence as inconsistent with the evidence that the constable had given at the trial within a trial, and as strengthening the case on which he had earlier founded his submission that the written statements were not voluntary.
The evidence related to the issue whether the police officers had promised to turn a blind eye to the evidence implicating Janet Laver in offences other and more serious than the offence of dishonestly handling l4 belts.
We quote from the transcript the submission that Mr. Digney then made, and the ruling of the learned Judge:
The first point I must raise is this (I am not getting on to my main submissions for the moment) that in the course of the trial there has be:en a considerable amount of evidence from Mr. Packington and Mr. Massey on the vexed question of the voluntariness of Watson's statement, a lot further than actually happened in the trial within a trial; the question of bail and the question of not charging Mrs. Laver. I can put it very shortly.
"I say, in the light of the contradictory answers that have been given by Mr. Packington with regard to charging Mrs. Laver and with regard to the fact that bail was granted in a case in which, on the face of it, bail should not have been granted, (and I ask your Honour to ask yourself the question: would you have granted bail in those circumstances? - and I say the answer would clearly be 'No') it is impossible to say with certainty that that statement was voluntary and there is a real question particularly as to its voluntariness. Of course, that is what is at issue; not its truth. In those circumstances, at this stage your Honour should rule that it is not admissible.
I have ruled on that already on the evidence before me, as I understand it. It used to be the position, as I understand it, when there was a question as to voluntariness, that it was the judge's duty to direct the jury to pay no attention to something unless it was voluntary, but following a direction in that form by as experienced a criminal lawyer as Mr. Justice Byrne, the Court of Appeal ruled...
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Neo Ah Soi v Public Prosecutor
...it, or where there is no other sufficient evidence against the accused, direct an acquittal or a new trial. This was held in R v Watson [1980] 1 WLR 991.In R v Murphy [1965] NI 138, which was relied on in R v Watson , Lord MacDermott LCJ expressed the view at p 143: ... Sometimes the true b......
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- Dato' Mokhtar Hashim and Another v Public Prosecutor
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Subject Index
...v Walker [1998] Crim LR 211 ....... 173R v Ward (1993) 96 Cr App R 1, [1993] 1WLR 619, CA ................ 183, 201, 230R v Watson (1980) 70 Cr App R 273 . 172R v West [1996] 2 Cr App R 374 .. 32, 38,40, 41, 45R v Williams [2003] EWCA Crim 3200................................... 116, 117–11......
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Court of Appeal
...the discharge of the jury. Section 76, it was said, compelledthis result. Before the Act of 1984, it had been held in R. v.Watson (1980) 70 Cr.App.R. 273, that a judge who has secondthoughts about a confession which he has admitted may changehis mind and take such steps as he considers nece......