Category: codes of practice

Regina v Walker (Triston) [2016] EWCA Crim 751

‘The defendant was charged with murder. On 4 August 2007 the crown prosecutor made a decision to charge his co-accused with assisting an offender. That decision was taken employing the threshold test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions (“DPP”) under section 37A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and considering the statutory charging procedures set out in section 37B, namely that when a case was referred by police to the DPP, the DPP should decide whether there was sufficient evidence to charge, decide which offence to charge and notify the police of his decision. The co-accused was charged by police on 21 August and the next day he was sent for trial. On 10 October a crown prosecutor gave written consent to the institution of proceedings against the co-accused. At trial the co-accused gave evidence which was broadly supportive of the defendant’s account but which contradicted that account in some respects. The defendant was convicted of murder. He sought leave to appeal against conviction, contending that the proceedings against the co-accused were a nullity, since the DPP had not given his consent until after he had been sent for trial; that, therefore, the co-accused should not have been on the same indictment as the defendant; that the co-accused’s contradictory evidence had done collateral damage to the defendant’s case; and that the conviction was therefore unsafe.’

WLR Daily, 1st July 2016

Source: www.iclr.co.uk