R v Williams (Clarence)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE PARKER,MR. JUSTICE HODGSON |
| Judgment Date | 17 October 1986 |
| Neutral Citation | [1986] EWCA Crim J1006-4 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1986] EWCA Crim J1017-16 |
| Docket Number | No. 3302/C1/86,No. 3302/C/86 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 17 October 1986 |
[1986] EWCA Crim J1006-4
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Parker
Mr. Justice Hodgson
and
Mr. Justice MacPherson
No. 3302/C/86
MR. A. BIEBUYCK appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. P. GRIFFITHS appeared on behalf of the Crown.
This appeal will be dismissed, but in view of the importance of the matter raised, we will give our reasons in writing at a later date.
I ask for prosecution costs up to 1st October from central funds.
Yes.
[1986] EWCA Crim J1017-16
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Lord Justice Parker
Mr. Justice Hodgson
and
Mr. Justice MacPherson
No. 3302/C1/86
MR. A. BIEBUYCK appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. P. GRIFFITH appeared on behalf of the Crown.
On 12th May 1986 after a trial the appellant was convicted by a majority verdict of making a threat to kill contrary to section 16 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. On 2nd June 1986 he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, of which 9 months were suspended. Against that conviction he now appeals by leave of the single judge.
The person to whom the threat was alleged to have been made was a Mrs. Edwards. Her evidence was that at about 1.20 p.m. on 25th February 1986 at a set of traffic lights in Kingston she saw the appellant. He crossed the road with her and said: "I am still going to fucking kill you," and: "One dark night I'll be round to get you." He was then alleged to have followed her, called her a "lesbian bitch" and repeated: "I am going to get you."
In her deposition, and later in evidence, Mrs. Edwards gave the following account of her relationship with the appellant They had met towards the end of 1983 and became intimate, sexual relations taking place between them. This continued until March 1984 when the relationship deteriorated. The appellent could not accept that the relationship had ended. He wrote many letters and made many telephone calls. On one occasion in the street after an altercation the appellant hit her several times about the head and, as she tried to resist, knocked her to the ground and kicked her. She did not report this incident to the police, but thereafter the phone calls she received from the appellant were of a threatening nature.
Later, in June or July, he sent her a pornographic magazine through the post. She reported this to the police. The appellant was seen and criminal proceedings were brought against him. They were due to be heard on 31st October 1984. On the day before, 30th October, she was in her car when the appellant drove a van at her car. She received cuts and bruises. The appellant was arrested. He was granted bail. A condition of bail was that he would not contact Mrs. Edwards. He complied. On 23rd July 1985 he was before the court and pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was sentenced to 9 months' imprisonment. He also faced the charge relating to the pornographic magazine; this was ordered to lie on the file. He was released from prison on 13th January 1986, some 6 weeks before the alleged threats. He did not see Mrs. Edwards between his release and the incident on 25th February 1986.
Section 16 provides: "A person who without lawful excuse makes to another a threat, intending that that other would fear it would be carried out, to kill that other… shall be guilty of an offence."
The somewhat unusual mental element required for the commission of this offence is clearly an acknowledgment by the legislature of the fact that words which, on their plain meaning, amount to a threat to kill, are frequently made in jest or temper in contexts where they are not intended to be taken seriously.
The prosecution therefore had to establish both that the appellant made the threats to Mrs. Edwards and that he intended that she would fear they would be carried out. The way the prosecution wished to put the case was that the threats were made because of resentment arising from his imprisonment and that the violence shown by the appellant to Mrs. Edwards in the past tended to prove that he intended his words to be taken seriously.
On behalf of the prosecution Mr. Griffith was properly-concerned that evidence of the attack in the street in Spring 1984, the sending of the pornographic magazine and the attack with the van would be seriously prejudicial to the appellant. Accordingly he took the unusual, but in the circumstances in no way improper, course of himself bringing the question of the admissibility of the previous history to the attention of the judge before the case began. He was also anxious that the judge should be reminded that he had a discretion to refuse to allow the evidence to be led if he was of the view that its prejudicial effect outweighed its probative value.
In the event the submissions made to the judge became unnecessarily complicated, as Mr. Griffith readily concedes, due to lengthy submissions on the admissibility of similar fact evidence, but he finally cited the important passage from Archbold 42nd edition, paragraphs 13-29:
"Similar facts and motive.
"(1) A distinction should be drawn between evidence of similar facts, usually relating to offences against persons other than the alleged victim of the offence charged, and evidence of other acts or declarations of the accused indicating a desire to commit, or reason for committing, the offence charged, i.e. motive. This distinction is sometimes blurred in reported decisions.
"(2) Although the prosecution do not have to prove motive, evidence of motive is always admissible in order to show that it is more probable that the accused committed the offence charged. The position is well stated in a dictum of Lord Atkinson in R. v. Ball (see 13-21, ante). At page 68 he said: 'Surely in an ordinary prosecution for murder you can prove previous acts or words of the accused to show that he entertained feelings of enmity towards the deceased, and that is evidence not merely of the malicious mind with which he killed the deceased, but of the fact that he killed him. You can give in evidence the enmity of the accused towards the deceased to prove that the accused took the deceased's life. Evidence of motive necessarily goes to prove the fact of the homicide by the accused, as well as his "malice aforethought", inasmuch as it is more probable that men are killed by those that have some motive for killing them than by those who have not.' As R. v. Ball was a case of incest, it is clear that Lord Atkinson's remarks were of a general application, and not confined to murder. Other authorities are R. v. Buckley (see 13-20 ante), and the cases cited in the note to R. v. Dossett (1846) 2 C. & K. 306."
Further support, if it be needed, for what appears in that passage can be got from two recent unreported decisions of this court, of the judgments in which we have been shown transcripts. R. v. Campbell 20th December 1984 (2284/C/84) and R. v. Pettman 2nd May 1985 (5048/C/82). In the latter case, after referring to Campbell, Lord Justice Purchas, in giving the judgment of the court said this: "Although the facts in Campbell were different from those in the instant case, in our judgment the principles remain the same, namely, that where it is necessary to place before the jury evidence of part of a continual background or history relevant to the offence charged in the...
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