Damian Thomas [2019] EWCA Crim 1958; [2020] R.T.R. 33

The appellant was convicted of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to 4 months imprisonment. The prosecution case was that he had provided false information on two occasions to his girlfriend for her to respond to a notice of intended prosecution. The prosecution also alleged that the appellant had been driving the car at the relevant time, and his account to the police that there had been five people in the car and had switched drivers was fabricated.

The defence case was that he had been attending a rave and was driving to it with others and supplied the names of the drivers believing them to be true.

Two grounds of appeal were raised. First that the Recorder erred in admitting evidence of the appellant’s previous penalty points. Second, that the Recorder “entered the arena and conducted a hostile cross-examination of the appellant”.

Held: the key issue is whether the Recorder’s ruling was either correct in law or fair. The Court’s view was that the ruling was wrong in law; it was not accepted that there was a materially misleading impression given in examination in chief. The Recorder was too quick to form a view and should have considered the matter more carefully. Had he done so, he may not have fallen into error. The jury may have been given the impression that the appellant had not been entirely forthcoming in his evidence, and this was not something curable by the summing-up, nor did the Recorder attempt to deal with it.

The defence submitted that the Recorder had transgressed most of the principles set out by Singh LJ in Inns. The Court was driven to the conclusion that the appellant did not receive a fair trial because of the inappropriate nature and frequency of the Recorder’s intervention into issues which went to the core of the defence. The jury may well have formed the impression that the Recorder did not believe the appellant.
The conviction was quashed, and there was no order for a re-trial, the appellant had served the full extent of his custodial sentence.