The Admissibility of Footwear Impressions Obtained in Breach of PACE
| Published date | 01 February 2014 |
| Date | 01 February 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2014.78.1.884 |
| Subject Matter | Crown Court |
Crown Court
The Admissibility of Footwear Impressions Obtained in
Breach of PACE
R v Howe (John Paul)
Keywords Footwear impressions; PACE, s. 61A; Unlawfully and
improperly obtained evidence; PACE, s. 78; Abuse of process; Expert
evidence
The defendant (H) appeared for trial before Newcastle upon Tyne Crown
Court on an indictment containing two counts. Count 1 charged H with
conspiracy to burgle between 16 January 2013 and 19 January 2013.
Count 2 charged H with a substantive offence of burglary, which was
unrelated to the conspiracy. In relation to count 2, His Honour Judge
Milford QC was asked to rule on the admissibility of expert evidence
concerning a footwear comparison.
The burglary that was the subject of count 2 took place between 7.45
am and 5.30 pm on 4 December 2012. H had been arrested on suspicion of
theft at 12.30 pm that day. The prosecution alleged that H had committed
the burglary either before his arrest, or after he was released on police bail
at 3.30 pm. Various items were stolen in the burglary, including a Playstation
games console and games. D’s home was searched on 20 December 2012
and the stolen Playstation and some of the games were recovered. A finger-
print found on one of the games was attributed to H. An analysis of the
Playstation’s hard drive revealed that a new user named ‘Howie’ had
created an account in the early hours of 5 December 2012.
During cross-examination of a police officer, the defence advocate
suggested that there was no forensic evidence connecting H to the burgled
premises. In fact, a shoe mark had been found at the premises. While H
was in police custody on the day of the burglary, footwear impressions
were taken from his training shoes. A footwear examiner concluded that
the shoe mark left by the burglar was similar in size and pattern to the
footwear impression taken from H’s left shoe. The comparison was carried
out by a fingerprint examiner who stated that she was competent to carry
out ‘foot wear coding and preliminary footwear screen examinations’. Her
report was listed on the schedule of unused material, but had not been
served on the defence as the prosecution had not intended to rely upon it.
Prosecution counsel subsequently sought to adduce evidence of the
footwear mark comparison to rebut the assertion that there was no
forensic evidence to connect H to the burgled premises. The judge ruled
that the line of cross-examination taken by H’s advocate had ‘opened this
door’ and evidence of the footwear examiner’s opinion was potentially
admissible.
H had not been aware that footwear impressions had been taken from
his shoes. H’s advocate queried why they were taken given that H had
been arrested on suspicion of theft from a shop.
6 The Journal of Criminal Law (2014) 78 JCL 6–11
doi:10.1350/jcla.2014.78.1.884
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