Bowden v R

Evidence is admissible if it has a sufficient evidential link to the accused and the alleged offence. The strength of that link and the weight of the evidence are ordinarily matters for the jury.

A ruling that evidence was insufficient against a co-accused does not make it inadmissible against another accused where the evidential case differs. A judge should generally avoid questioning an expert where competent counsel have left the point for address. However, an unwise but neutral intervention will not render a conviction unsafe unless it caused unfairness or created a real doubt about the verdict.

The appellant was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of attempted robbery and possessing a firearm with intent. The prosecution relied principally on a balaclava containing glass fragments and particles consistent with gunshot residue, a diary entry recording the false registration number of a vehicle said to have been used in the offence, and a tow rope linked to another vehicle.

He appealed against conviction. He challenged the admission of the diary and rope, particularly because similar evidence had been insufficient to leave the case against his father to a jury at an earlier joint trial. He also complained that the trial judge had questioned the defence expert about the cumulative effect of the forensic evidence.

1. Appeal dismissed. The diary entry was admissible. It was the appellant’s diary, he had used it, and he continued to visit the house where it was kept. Those matters supplied a sufficient connection to make the entry relevant; its weight was for the jury.

2. The rope was also properly admitted. The appellant’s connection with his father’s vehicle was limited, but it was sufficient for a jury to consider whether he had placed the rope there and what weight, if any, to give that evidence. The rope alone could not begin to prove guilt, but it had evidential value in the overall case.

3. The earlier ruling that the evidence was insufficient against the appellant’s father was immaterial. The case against the appellant included the separate and important balaclava evidence. The prosecution’s earlier reliance on the diary and rope against the father did not prevent it from relying on them against the appellant at the retrial.

4. Any potential prejudice from evidence concerning the father was a matter of forensic choice for the defence. The jury did not need to be told of the father’s conviction, and the judge’s direction that there was no guilt by association was clear and adequate.

5. The judge’s questions to the defence expert about the combined significance of the glass and residue evidence would better have been left unasked. But they were neutrally framed, raised an obvious issue for the jury, and elicited no more than the common-sense assessment the jury would otherwise have made. The defence also obtained an answer that the combined findings gave no scientific certainty. There was no unfairness and no doubt about the safety of the conviction. The summing-up was fair, balanced and clear.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the appellant’s appeal against conviction.
• Crown Court at Manchester Convicted the appellant of attempted robbery and possessing a firearm with intent, and imposed concurrent extended sentences comprising 16 years’ custody and a two-year extension period.