Darren Kidd [2019] EWCA Crim 1439

The applicant was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He had argued with neighbours and claimed self-defence. Two convictions for assault were admitted as bad character evidence although one conviction had subsequently been quashed. It was accepted at the appeal that the PNC record was inaccurate and that the first conviction would not, on its own, be evidence of propensity. The prosecution argued that it would still be admissible as the applicant had made an attack on the character of the prosecution witnesses.

Held: the argument has difficulties, “the applicant was entitled to raise a defence of self-defence without risking the admission of his previous convictions”. The better approach was to assume the evidence was wrongly admitted and then go on to analyse the safety of the conviction. There was strong evidence against the applicant, and the bad character was a small part of the case, this was a minor error that did not affect the safety of the conviction.

The application was refused.