Source: All England Reporter
Publisher Citation: [2005] All ER (D) 201 (Feb)
Court: Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Judge:

Lord Woolf CJ, Davis and Field JJ
Representation Paul Dockery (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the first appellant.
  Mark Benson (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the second appellant.
  Andrew O'Byrne (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) for the Crown.
Judgment Dates: 14 February 2005

Catchwords

Criminal evidence and procedure - Trial - Jury - Possession of a prohibited firearm and ammunition - Evidence of propensity of co-accused - Refusal of trial judge to admit evidence.

The Case

In the circumstances, while the evidence of a co-defendant's previous connection with firearms had been relevant to the other defendants' cases the error in not admitting it was not sufficient to render the conviction by the jury as unsafe. The purpose of admitting the evidence for the co-defendants was to prove to the jury that M had a propensity to be connected with firearms and was therefore most likely to be guilty of the offence of possession for which they all had stood trial. As the jury had found M guilty of that offence, the co-defendants' cases had not been prejudiced by not having the evidence admitted.

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