Ross Elliott [2019] EWCA Crim 1250

The appellant was convicted after trial on a count of conspiracy to transfer or sell prohibited weapons and appealed against conviction. The sole ground was that the trial judge wrongly refused to permit him to put in certain evidence on the ground that such proposed evidence was speculative and of no sufficient relevance to the count of conspiracy.

The Crown’s case was that the appellant was the main contact in the southeast UK for two co-accused and that they supplied him with firearms which they had smuggled in. Arms were also transported to the Sheffield area, but it was not alleged the appellant was connected to that. The case was based on the culmination of circumstantial evidence from phones, cell siting, intercepted calls, texts, number plate recognition, CCTV, surveillance, details from SatNav, seizure of items and financial evidence. The appellant’s case was that he was nothing to do with guns but rather illegally imported tobacco and cannabis.

Counsel for the appellant had found a seizure of guns at a local address and wanted to admit evidence of the seizure on the basis that it was indicative of a separate group operating from the area. The judge did not accept it was relevant and so was not admissible, he said to do so would be to encourage the jury to engage in impermissible speculation. The issue was whether the judge was justified in concluding the evidence was irrelevant. This was not a matter of discretion but one of evidential evaluation on the part of the judge.

Held: having considered the careful and thorough ruling the Court could see no proper basis for interfering with the judge’s conclusion. Quite simply there was no sufficient evidential nexus between the gun found in the local seizure and the other guns. It was quite right to rule the evidence inadmissible and the appeal was dismissed.