Deans, R v

Fresh evidence of police misconduct does not automatically make an earlier conviction unsafe. The appellate court should ask whether the evidence, if available at trial, might reasonably have affected the jury’s decision to convict.

Misconduct occurring after the investigation or trial can affect the safety of a conviction. Serious impropriety by one officer may also cast doubt on evidence from other officers in the same investigation. The assessment remains fact-sensitive. Particular weight may attach to the time between the conviction and the misconduct, the nature of the misconduct, and its connection with the evidence given at trial.

In 1989, Victor Deans was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of drug offences arising from three police operations in October and December 1988. The prosecution case depended on police evidence. Deans alleged mistaken identification, fabricated evidence and the planting of drugs.

An earlier appeal against conviction was dismissed in 1995. The Criminal Cases Review Commission then referred the case under section 9(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, after several officers had been subject to disciplinary findings or allegations of misconduct. The central issue was whether that later material rendered the convictions unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court was satisfied that the convictions remained safe.
2. Applying the approach stated in Pendleton [2001] UKHL 66, the question was whether the later material, if available at trial, might reasonably have affected the jury’s decision to convict. If it might have done so, the convictions would be unsafe.
3. The court accepted that later police misconduct can, in an appropriate case, undermine an earlier conviction. It also accepted that serious corruption by one or more officers may affect the reliability of evidence from other officers in the same investigation, even where those other officers have not themselves been impugned.
4. Those principles did not determine this appeal. Detective Constable Breakwell’s later discrediting did not infect his uncontroversial and undisputed evidence. Detective Constable Davis’s admitted misconduct, almost ten years later, did not rationally diminish his earlier evidence. Detective Constable Robotham’s later theft of drugs and dishonesty were grave, but they occurred about nine years after the relevant investigation and trial. There was no evidence of misconduct by him between 1988 and 1997.
5. The court considered Jamil [2001] EWCA Crim. 1687 materially analogous. As in that case, the passage of time and the presence of other officers meant that the later disciplinary finding did not undermine the safety of the earlier convictions. The authorities in which convictions had been quashed involved misconduct that was contemporaneous, or reasonably contemporaneous, with the investigation or trial, even if it emerged only years later.
6. The court therefore held that the later material did not provide a proper basis for doubting verdicts reached almost a decade before the known or alleged misconduct.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — following a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, dismissed the appeal and held the convictions safe.
• Court of Appeal — dismissed an earlier appeal against conviction on 17 February 1995.
• Crown Court at Birmingham — convicted Deans on 29 November 1989 of the relevant drug offences.