Only defendants with a good character or deemed to be of effective good character were entitled to a good character direction. Where a defendant had a bad character, a judge was not obliged to give a good character direction; he or she had a discretion.

The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so held when dismissing appeals against conviction by: (1) Nigel Hunter, who was convicted on 30 January 2012 in the Crown Court at Manchester, before Judge Stockdale QC and a jury, of five counts of sexual assault, two counts of rape and one count of attempted rape for which he was sentenced in total to a sentence of imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of seven years; (2) Joseph Saruwu, who was convicted on 6 November 2013 in the Crown Court at Snaresbrook, before Judge Lees and a jury, of attempted rape, for which he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment; (3) Ian Johnstone, who was convicted on 21 October 2011 in the Crown Court at Reading, before Judge Mowat and a jury, of five counts of sexual activity with a child for which he was sentenced to a total of eight years’ imprisonment; (4) Alan Walker, who was convicted on 8 March 2012 in the Crown Court at Burnley, before Mr Recorder Clarke QC and a jury, of assault by penetration for which he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment; and (5) Paul Lonsdale, who was convicted on 2 July 2012 in the Crown Court at Bradford, before Judge Bartfield and a jury, of four counts of gross indecency with a child under 16 for which he was sentenced to a total of 42 months’ imprisonment.

HALLETT LJ said, in the reserved judgment of the court, that the court had considered the development of the law relating to good character directions, particularly the two leading authorities: R v Vye [1993] 1 WLR 471 and R v Aziz [1996] AC 41. Taking the various categories of “good character”, their Lordships used the term “absolute good character” to mean a defendant who had no previous convictions or cautions recorded against him or her and no other reprehensible conduct alleged, admitted or proven. The defendant did not have to go further and adduce evidence of positive good character. This category of defendant was entitled to both limbs of the good character direction. The law was settled. The Judicial College standard direction in the Crown Court Bench Book was commended to judges to ensure consistency.

Where a defendant had previous convictions or cautions recorded which were old, minor and had no relevance to the charge, the judge had to make a judgment as to whether or not to treat the defendant as a person of “effective good character”. It did not follow from the fact that a defendant had previous convictions which were old or irrelevant to the offence charged that a judge was obliged to treat him as a person of good character. In fairness to all, the trial judge should be vigilant to ensure that only those defendants who merited an “effective good character” direction were afforded one. It was for the judge to make a judgment, by assessing all the circumstances of the offence/s and the offender, to the extent known, and then to decide what fairness to all dictated. The judge should not leave it to the jury to decide whether or not the defendant was to be treated as of good character. If the judge decided to treat a defendant as a person of effective good character, the judge did not have a discretion whether to give the direction. S/he had to give both limbs of the direction, modified as necessary to reflect the other matters and thereby ensure the jury was not misled.

Where previous convictions or cautions had been adduced, pursuant to the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a defendant had no entitlement to either limb of the good character direction. It was a matter for the judge’s discretion. Where a judge had declined to give a modified good character direction to a defendant in this category, the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, should have proper regard to the exercise of discretion by the judge who had presided over the trial. If the judge had failed to give a good character direction or misdirected the jury that was not necessarily fatal to the safety of the conviction. It depended on the facts of individual cases: see Singh v The State [2006] 1 WLR 146, para 30, per Lord Bingham of Cornhill and R v Vye [1993] 1 WLR 471, 477, per Lord Taylor CJ.

A very thorough review of the case law had been conducted so that it would be unnecessary in future for other courts to do the same. Reliance on the present judgment, R v Vye and R v Aziz should suffice