Murray, R v

On a renewed criminal appeal, the question is whether the conviction remains safe in light of subsequent developments. The fact that an informer or associated police officers have been discredited in other cases does not by itself taint the evidence in the case under review. The court must examine whether the new material undermines the particular evidence on which the jury acted.

Applying Pendleton [2002] 1 WLR 72, a conviction may remain safe where the informer’s material account was unprompted, the police could not have supplied the critical information, and independent evidence supporting that account remains unimpaired.

In April 1989, the appellant was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of attempting to rob Patricia McGowan. She was acquitted of handling stolen goods and burglary. The prosecution case depended principally on the evidence of Paul Jarvis, an accomplice and police informer, but there was independent evidence that the appellant knew Mrs McGowan’s bank routine and could have supplied the information used in the attempted robbery.

An earlier appeal against conviction was dismissed in August 1989, although the sentence appeal succeeded. The Criminal Cases Review Commission later referred the conviction because officers connected with Jarvis and the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad had been discredited in other cases. The issue was whether those later developments rendered this conviction unsafe.

1. The appeal was dismissed. Applying the safety inquiry identified in Pendleton [2002] 1 WLR 72, the court asked whether, in light of subsequent events, the conviction remained safe.

2. The court accepted that DS Hornby should not be advanced as a credible witness and that DC Woodley and DCI Brown could have faced cross-examination on matters arising in other cases. Those matters did not, however, automatically taint Jarvis’s evidence in this prosecution. The cases concerning police admissions or evidence affected by police handling, including John Edwards [1991] 93 Cr App R 48, were materially different because this appellant had made no critical admission to the police.

3. Jarvis implicated the appellant before the police knew of her connection with Mrs McGowan or of the information she possessed about Mrs McGowan’s banking routine. The court therefore found no basis for suggesting that the police had supplied Jarvis with the vital information in his account. His statement on that issue remained unimpugned despite the later revelations about his conduct and the officers’ conduct in other matters.

4. The jury had been clearly warned of the danger of acting on Jarvis’s uncorroborated evidence. Its verdicts showed that it convicted only where there was independent support. The attempted robbery displayed planning, the appellant had access to the necessary information, and Mrs McGowan’s evidence independently confirmed both the information and the appellant’s opportunity to supply it.

5. Accordingly, the later material did not undermine the relevant evidence or the independent support for it. The conviction remained safe.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 24 January 2003, the court dismissed the renewed appeal following a Criminal Cases Review Commission reference: [2003] EWCA Crim 27.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 10 August 1989, the appellant’s appeal against conviction was dismissed. Her appeal against sentence was allowed and one year of the two-year sentence was suspended.

• Crown Court at Birmingham: On 18 April 1989, the appellant was convicted of attempted robbery and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.