A Crown Court judge presiding over a retrial had been wrong to designate a pre-trial hearing as a preparatory hearing, and so the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to hear the defendants’ interlocutory appeal against his ruling that the complainant’s police interview and cross-examination at the original trial could be admitted as hearsay evidence at […]
In calculating the time to be served pursuant to an order under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 s.116, justice required account to be taken of time spent in prison between recall to custody to serve the balance of a licence period for a previous offence and sentencing for a new offence committed […]
Convictions for rape and indecent assault were quashed where the Crown’s reliance on hearsay evidence of bad character in the form of statements containing allegations of rape had circumvented the restrictions on hearsay evidence in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
The judge had been wrong to admit documents, prepared by police officers, giving details of methods used in the commission of offences of which the appellant had been previously convicted, but the appellant’s convictions for the instant offences were nevertheless safe. It was important that the formal procedures referred to in R. v Hanson (Nicky) […]
