Wooldridge, R (on the application of) v Director of Public Prosecutions

A medical certificate under section 16(2) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 is inadmissible where it was not served at least seven days before the hearing. The accused may waive formal proof of service, but a short delay in objecting after first seeing the certificate does not amount to waiver. A conviction cannot be upheld on speculation about evidence absent from the stated case. An unsigned witness statement may nevertheless be admissible where the witness signed the declaration confirming its truth.

The appellant was convicted by magistrates of driving with excess alcohol. The prosecution relied on a medical practitioner's certificate stating that a blood specimen had been taken with her consent, but the certificate had not been supplied to her solicitor before the trial. The magistrates admitted it, treated the service requirement as waived, and also admitted a witness statement signed at the beginning but not at the end.

The appeal by case stated concerned the admissibility of the medical certificate, the unsigned statement, and whether the conviction could stand.

1. The appeal was allowed and the conviction was quashed. The certificate was not admissible under section 16(2) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 because it had not been served within the statutory period.

2. Failure to serve the certificate within seven days of the hearing was a substantive defect which could not be waived by the appellant or her advisers. The authorities, including Tobi v Nicholas and McCormack v Director of Public Prosecutions, established that point. A defendant may waive only the requirement that service be formally proved, as recognised in Lewis v DPP.

3. The appellant's solicitor had objected after a delay of one or two minutes because he had first learned of the certificate when it was read in court. That conduct could not constitute waiver.

4. The statement of Police Constable Trow was properly admitted under section 9 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, notwithstanding the omission of a second signature at its conclusion, because he had signed the declaration at the beginning confirming that he had read and approved the statement as true.

5. The conviction could not be upheld by speculating about other evidence not identified in the stated case. The magistrates had not stated that any other named witness proved the matters covered by the inadmissible certificate.

6. The respondent was ordered to pay the appellant's costs.

The judgment itself does not state an earlier appellate decision. The appeal was brought by case stated from Burton upon Trent Magistrates' Court.