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Under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, section 76, the admissibility of a confession turns on its reliability in the circumstances in which it was obtained, not on whether it may be true. Where fresh evidence materially undermines the police account of interviews with a highly suggestible mentally handicapped suspect, the appellate court must determine the resulting admissibility issue before considering whether the new evidence might have affected the jury’s verdict. If the fresh evidence would have required exclusion of the sole evidence capable of proving guilt, the conviction is unsafe and must be quashed.

The appellant had been convicted of manslaughter at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court in 1989 after his acquittal of murder. The prosecution case depended entirely on confessions made during police interviews. There was no forensic evidence connecting him to the killing.

The appellant was mentally subnormal and highly suggestible. The interviews occurred without an appropriate adult and, initially, without legal advice. He later denied the killing. A direct appeal against conviction was dismissed in 1990.

In 2002 the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the conviction under section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. Fresh evidence included a police intelligence-system printout, generated for one of the interviewing officers, which contained a warning marked “MENTAL”. The central issue was whether that evidence made the conviction unsafe by affecting the admissibility and reliability of the confessions.

1. The appeal was allowed and the conviction quashed. The court admitted the fresh documentary evidence under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968.

2. The intelligence-system printout was probably obtained by DS Dunn and was probably available to the two interviewing officers before the first formal interview. Its mental-health warning would have alerted a prudent officer to the appellant’s impaired capacity. The court rejected DS Dunn’s explanation that another officer might have generated the printout using his number.

3. Under Code C, paragraph 1.4, an officer who suspects that a person is mentally handicapped must treat that person accordingly. The fresh evidence therefore made the absence of a responsible adult a substantially more serious breach than had appeared at trial.

4. The court applied section 76 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The Crown had to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the confessions had not been obtained in circumstances likely to render them unreliable. The inquiry concerned reliability, rather than truth, consistently with the formulation approved in Paris [1993] 97 CAR 99.

5. Had the trial judge had the printout, he would undoubtedly have excluded the confessions. The court therefore did not reach the jury-impact inquiry in Pendleton [2001] UKHL 66. Exclusion would have left no case against the appellant. The conviction was consequently unsafe.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission under section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the court allowed the appeal and quashed the conviction: [2003] EWCA Crim 3309.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appellant’s direct appeal against conviction was dismissed on 19 November 1990.

• Crown Court at Newcastle upon Tyne: On 24 July 1989, the appellant was acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter. A hospital order under section 37, with a restriction order under section 41, of the Mental Health Act 1983 was made the following day.