Welcome to the ICLR Criminal Law Updater for July 2014. Here’s our round up of the reportable and unreportable criminal cases decided in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) and the UK Supreme Court over the last four weeks. Where a transcript is available on BAILII, a linked reference has been provided.

Reportable Cases

R v Mehmedov [2014] EWCA Crim 1523; [2014] WLR (D) 325, CA

18 July 2014

CRIME — Character — Defendant’s bad character —  A certificate of a conviction in a member state of the European Union was admissible in evidence under section 73(1) of the Police and Criminal Act 1984 even where the conviction preceded the accession of the member state concerned to the European Union.

 

R v Jones (Nicholas) [2014] WLR (D) 319, CA

16 July 2014

CRIME — Evidence — Character — A finding by a tribunal that an expert’s evidence was not as objective and independent as it might have been was not evidence of bad character with sections 98 and 112 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003

CRIME — Conspiracy — Conspiracy to defraud — For a defendant to be guilt of conspiracy to defraud it was not essential for the defendant to have had personal dealings with a co-conspirator, participation in and knowledge of the fraud being sufficient.

 

Colefax v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2014] EWCA Civ 945; [2014] WLR (D) 296, CA

8 July 2014

Crime — Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority — The ordinary meaning of paragraph 18(b) of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2008, which provided that a claims officer could waive the two-year time limit, from the date of the relevant incident, for the making of an application for compensation in respect of a criminal injury where, in the particular circumstances of the case, it would not have been reasonable to expect the applicant to have made an application within the two-year period, required the late applicant to show that it was not reasonable to expect him to make any application for compensation within time thereby placing the burden on the late applicant to show that he did not fail to comply with a reasonable expectation that he would pursue his compensation rights in a timely manner.

 

Other cases of interest

R v Sunalla  [2014] CN 1404, CA

CRIME — Summing up — Judge’s directions

R v Bristow  [2014] CN 1358, CA

CRIME — Burglary — Directions to jury  

R v Hamilton (Stephen)  [2014] EWCA Crim 1555; [2014] CN 1367, CA

CRIME — Sexual offences — Rape  

R v Gardner (Karl)  [2014] CN 1366, CA

CRIME — Jury — Verdict  

R v R (B) [2014] EWCA Crim 1311; [2014] CN 1200, CA

CRIME — Evidence — Fresh evidence

R v Afzal (Rameez) [2014] CN 1163, CA

CRIME — Sentence — Unduly lenient sentence — Attorney General referring case to Court of Appeal on grounds sentence unduly lenient — Principle of double jeopardy where sentences increased — Guidance

R v Aslam (Nadeem) [2014] EWCA Crim 1292; [2014] CN 1274, CA

CRIME — Sexual offence — Rape — Fresh evidence that complainant might have been lying —Whether fresh evidence credible

R v Ernest (Sam) [2014] EWCA Crim 1312; [2014] CN 1227, CA

CRIME — Sentence — Confiscation — Whether judge erring in calculation of benefit —

Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, ss 10, 75

R v Jones (Conrad) (No 2) [2014] EWCA Crim 1337; [2014] CN 1204, CA

CRIME — Common law offence — Perverting course of justice — Whether fresh evidence showing conviction unsafe

McEwan v National Taxing Team [2014] EWHC 2308 (Admin); [2014] CN 1279, DC

CRIME — Costs — Power to award costs  

R (Doerfel) v Comr of Police of the Metropolis [2014] CN 1300, DC

CRIME — Practice — Prosecution of offences  

R v Ayedun [2014] CN 1314, CA

CRIME — Illegal immigrant — Evidence  

And, finally…

The Divisional Court gave an interesting decision in the extradition appeal case of Florea v The Judicial Authority Carei Courthouse, Satu Mare County, Romania [2014] EWHC 2258 (Admin) on 30 July 2014. The appellant contented that his extradition to Romania to face a three year sentence would contravene Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the grounds of the overcrowded conditions in Romanian prisons.

The court allowed the appeal, concluding that to return the appellant to serve his sentence in a prison where he would have two squared meters or less of personal space would amount to a breach of article 3.

A summary of the decision can be found on CrimeLine here. 

About the citations in this Updater

There are four types of citation included in this updater:

  • Neutral Citations (e.g. [2014] EWCA Crim 1196) – these are publisher-neutral case references. These references, when clicked, will refer you to BAILII (where a transcript of the decision is available).
  • References to published law reports (e.g. [2014] 1 WLR 123) – these are references to the various series of law reports published by ICLR. These references, when clicked, will refer you to the law report of the case on ICLR Online. Please note that you must be an ICLR Online subscriber to access these cases.
  • References to the WLR Daily (e.g. [2014] WLR (D) 265) – these are references to the case summary service provided by ICLR. The WLR (D) case summaries are reserved for those cases that appear to be reportable and are free to acess.
  • ICLR Case Notes (e.g. [2014] CN 973) – these are summaries of unreportable cases and are only accessible to registered ICLR Online subscribers.