R v Yap Chuan Ching

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeLORD JUSTICE LAWTON
Judgment Date05 February 1976
Judgment citation (vLex)[1976] EWCA Crim J0205-7
CourtCourt of Appeal (Criminal Division)
Docket NumberNo. 3547/A/75
Date05 February 1976
Regina
and
Yap Chuan Ching

[1976] EWCA Crim J0205-7

Before:

Lord Justice Lawton

Mr. Justice MacKenna

and

Mr. Justice Bristow

No. 3547/A/75

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

MR. P. LATHAM appeared on behalf of the Appellant.

MR. A. LEVY appeared on behalf of the Crown.

LORD JUSTICE LAWTON
1

On 1st July 1975 at St. Albans Crown Court, after a trial before His Honour Judge Lonsdale, the appellant was convicted by a majority of eleven to one of theft (count 1), but was acquitted of the theft charged in count 2 of the indictment. He was fined £50 to be paid at the rate of £5 a week with three months' imprisonment in default of payment. He was ordered to pay £35 towards the legal aid costs of his defence. He now appeals against conviction by leave of the single Judge.

2

On 15th November 1974 the appellant and a girl friend went shopping in a supermarket at St. Albans. As he walked around selecting items and putting them into a trolley, he was seen to put various items, three packets of chicken, a cucumber, a packet of bacon and a lemon of a total value of £2.20, into a plastic shopping bag. When he reached the check-out point, he handed the bag to his girl friend and paid for the goods in the trolley. The appellant then left the store.

3

On leaving he was stopped by a store detective. He was co-operative with both her and the police when they arrived. He admitted taking the items, but denied that he had done so dishonestly. He made a statement in which he said that he was in a hurry to leave the store and did not notice any difference in the weight of the bag when he handed it to his girl friend.

4

The mere recital of those facts shows that this case was of a type which is tried every day in many Magistrates Courts all over England and Wales. The issue was clear, did the accused act dishonestly. Unfortunately, despite the clarity of the issue, and a clear and impeccable summing up by the Judge, the jury seemed to have had some difficulty.

5

They retired to consider their verdict at 2.18. They returned into court at 4.26. They then made it clear that although they were agreed on count 2 of the indictment, they were not able to agree on count 1. Thereupon the Judge gave them in correct terms a direction about majority verdicts. They retired at 4.30 to give further consideration to the case. At 5.32 they came back into court because the Judge, very reasonably, took the view that there might not be much point in their going on with their deliberations any longer having regard to the simplicity of the issue.

6

When the jury came back into court, he made inquiries about the prospect of reaching a verdict. In the course of the discussion with the foreman of the jury, the foreman asked whether he could put a question. He was told he could. He then said to the Judge: "The problem seems to centre around the question of the doubts that we have. Several of you, yourself included, your Honour, saw fit to point out that if we had any doubts then we were to find him not guilty. It is on this particular point."

7

That comment by the foreman can be construed in two ways. The first is that he was merely telling the Judge that some of the jurors had doubts. The second way is that he wanted the Judge to give further directions about "doubt". The Judge construed the comment in the second sense, and having done so, and done so reasonably, he then gave the jury a further direction in these terms: "Perhaps I can give you this further direction. It is the duty of the Prosecution to prove the charge on the whole of the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasonable doubt, it has been said, is a doubt to which you can give a reason, as opposed to a mere fanciful sort of speculation such as 'Well, nothing in this world is certain, nothing in this world can be proved.' As I say, that is the definition of a reasonable doubt: something to which you can assign a reason. It is sometimes said the sort of matter which might influence you if you were to consider some business matter. A matter, for example, of a mortgage concerning your house, or something of that nature. Does that assist?" The foreman said "Yes, it does." The Judge then invited them to retire again. The time was then 5.34. They came back into court at 5.38 and returned the verdict to which I referred at the beginning of this Judgment.

8

The appellant's submissions centre around that final direction to the jury. They can be summarised in these terms: that what the learned Judge said was contrary to a number of decisions of this Court and its predecessor; that the effect of the direction was to lower the standard of proof and that in the circumstances of this case it clearly did lower the standard of proof, because, although the jury had had long discussion about count 1 of the indictment, as soon as they got the direction to which I have referred, they were able to make up their minds within four minutes. Mr. Latham, who developed the submissions on behalf of the appellant with considerable skill and realism, pointed out that it was the element of the "time scale" which made the direction of which he complains so mischievous.

9

Both the prosecution and the appellant were represented by learned counsel. We have been told by the Bar that counsel for the Crown at least twice – once in his opening address and once in his final submissions – told the jury that they had to be sure of guilt before they could convict. Mr. Latham on behalf of the appellant, told us that he had built his defence around the burden of proof and he felt sure that he must at least once have told the jury that they would have to be sure before they could convict. It follows that when the Judge started his summing up, he was not giving directions to a jury...

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22 cases
  • Jagatheesan s/o Krishnasamy v Public Prosecutor
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 24 Julio 2006
    ...have abandoned any further attempt to define what constitutes reasonable doubt, calling it an “impossible” task: R v Yap Chuan Ching (1976) 63 Cr App R 7 (“Ching”) at 11. Many authors have similarly despaired over the futility of such an exercise: see Wigmore on Evidence vol IX (Little, Bro......
  • ADM International Sarl (a company incorporated in Switzerland) v Grain House International S.A. (Formerly known as Compagnie Agricole De Commercialisation Et De Conditionnement Des Cereales ET Legumineuses S.A.) (a company incorporated in Morocco)
    • United Kingdom
    • Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court)
    • 26 Enero 2023
    ...(Crown Court Compendium paragraph 5.2). This is in effect the same thing as the traditional “beyond reasonable doubt” (see R v Ching (1976) 63 Cr App Rep 7), but should probably be adopted also in contempt 38 It is common ground that in order to establish that someone is factually in conte......
  • Public Prosecutor v GCK and another matter
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 22 Enero 2020
    ...Many have despaired of attempting to articulate its intricacies, and the English Court of Appeal was driven in R v Yap Chuan Ching (1976) 63 Cr App R 7 (“Ching”) to conclude at 11, somewhat cynically, that “if judges stopped trying to define that which is almost impossible to define there w......
  • Roberts v The State
    • Trinidad & Tobago
    • Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago)
    • 29 Julio 2008
    ...is on the prosecution to prove its case to their satisfaction so that they feel sure of the guilt of the person charged (see also R v Yap Chuan Ching (1976) 63 Cr App Rep 7). And in the present case in determining the adequacy of the summing-up on this issue, this court cannot be unmindful ......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
3 books & journal articles
  • Indexes
    • United Kingdom
    • Sage International Journal of Evidence & Proof, The No. 18-4, October 2014
    • 1 Octubre 2014
    ....112R vWild (1835) 1Mood Cr C452. . . . . . . . 131, 134R vXY [2013] NSWCCA121 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332R v Yap Chuan Ching (1976) 63 Cr App R 7, CA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 7R (Morgan Grenfell & Co Ltd) v Special Commis-sioner of......
  • The Chaos of Reasonable Doubt
    • Ireland
    • Trinity College Law Review No. XVII-2014, January 2014
    • 1 Enero 2014
    ...2014). 9 A full breakdown of the respective questions and Sweeney J’s answers can be found at: (visited 31 January 2014). 10 R v Ching (1976) 63 Cr App R 7. 11 John Montgomery, “The Criminal Standard of Proof” (1998) 148 NLJ 582. 12 Chiefly Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, and Lor......
  • Credibility Contests: The Elephant in the Room
    • United Kingdom
    • Sage International Journal of Evidence & Proof, The No. 18-1, January 2014
    • 1 Enero 2014
    ...37CREDIBILITY CONTESTS: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM14 Miller vMinister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372 at 373–4.15 RvYap Chuan Ching (1976) 63 Cr App R 7, comprised four parts. These were, first, the warning itself, that is, that it wasdangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of the......

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