Recent Judicial Decisions
| Date | 01 March 1969 |
| Author | J. C. Wood |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6904200308 |
| Published date | 01 March 1969 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
PROFESSOR
J.
C.
WOOD,
LL.M.
The University
of
Sheffield
WHAT IS AN ALmI?
R. v. Lewis
[1969]
1 All E.R. 79 Court of Appeal
Lewis was charged with receiving property.
It
was
part
of the
prosecution's case that he drove a car which was used to distribute
the property two days after the alleged day of the receiving. He
wished to challenge this evidence by showing that he was elsewhere
when he was supposed to bedriving the car. This evidence was ruled
inadmissible by the trial Judge because no notice of alibi had been
given under s.
11
of the Criminal Justice Act
1967.
Two provisions of s. 11 are important:
S. 11(1) On a trial on indictment the defendant shall not without leave of
the court address evidence in support of an alibi unless before the
end of the prescribed period, he gives notice of particulars of the
alibi.
S. 11(8) "Evidence in support of an alibi" means evidence tending to show
that by reason of the presence of the defendant at a particular place
or in a particular area at a particular time he was not or was unlikely
to have been, at the place where the offenceis alleged to have been
committed at the time of its alleged commission.
The trial Judge was prepared to accept the point that the events
of the second date would of themselves have satisfied a receiving
charge regardless of the events of the date specified in the indictment.
The Court of Appeal was clear that this was wrong. S.
11
applies
only to the time the alleged crime was committed. The rules do not
apply to other occasions. Since his notice of an intention to raise an
alibi must be given within sevendays after the end of the committal
proceedings the time of the alleged offence must be that indicated
by
them-that
is to say the depositions and charges laid on committal.
The appeal was therefore allowed. An attempt to get the Court of
Appeal to apply s. 2(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, and to
uphold the conviction despite the error, was rejected. The Court of
Appeal thought it must be rare for this course to be adopted where
evidence had been wrongly excluded under s. 11.
Note
It is obvious that s. 11 is bound to have serious problems of application.
The Court of Appeal
said-"It
will no doubt be proved in future that there are
many difficulties in s. 11 but we are not proposing to deal with more than those
which strictly arise today."
This case is a good example of the uncertainties of the effect of legislation.
Clearly a great deal of thought must be given to the framing of the committal
charges so that situations such as this may be anticipated.
118 March 1969
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