Morris, R v

A trial judge may treat a defendant with spent convictions as a person other than of good character and may take those convictions into account on credibility. Where historic, dissimilar offending and positive character evidence make a propensity direction appropriate, the jury should be told that the evidence may reduce the likelihood of the charged offending. An omission will not make a conviction unsafe if the character evidence was fully and fairly placed before the jury and the omitted inference was obvious.

A summing-up need not repeat every evidential point. It must fairly present the competing cases and leave factual issues to the jury. Sentencing for serious wounding must reflect intent, but remains fact-sensitive and admits no rigid tariff.

After a five-day jury trial at Lewes Crown Court, Jess Morris was convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after biting off part of Nathan Hunt’s ear, and of common assault upon Sara Heath. He received five years’ imprisonment on the first count and four months’ imprisonment concurrently on the second.

He appealed against conviction and sentence. The conviction appeal challenged the refusal of a full or modified good-character direction, and alleged that the summing-up was inaccurate, unbalanced and improperly intruded on factual matters reserved to the jury. The sentence appeal contended that five years’ imprisonment was manifestly excessive.

1. The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The judge was entitled to regard the appellant, who had historic spent convictions for dishonesty, as a person other than of good character. He could therefore direct the jury that those convictions were relevant to credibility, while making clear that they were not evidence of guilt or propensity.
2. However, the judge should have given a suitably modified propensity direction. The historic dishonesty offences were dissimilar to the assaults charged, and the substantial character evidence of honesty, kindness and absence of violence could support the inference that the appellant was less likely to have committed violent assaults. The omission did not render the convictions unsafe. The judge had rehearsed that evidence in considerable detail, and its relevance to the unlikelihood of violence was apparent. The court was sure that an express direction could not have affected the verdicts.
3. A summing-up need not repeat all the evidence or every submission of counsel. Its function is to put the evidence and issues fairly before the jury, which alone determines the facts and whether guilt has been proved. Read as a whole, this summing-up fairly put the defence case. The judge’s eight questions were permissible aids to deliberation, not directions on factual matters or an intrusion into the jury’s province. The alleged errors, omissions and comments did not individually or cumulatively make the verdicts unsafe.
4. The appeal against sentence was allowed. The five-year sentence for the offence under section 18 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 was manifestly excessive. The offence was unpremeditated, the intent was formed and acted upon over a short period, it was out of character, and the judge found no future risk to the public. The sentence nevertheless had to reflect the jury’s finding of intent and the absence of a guilty plea. The sentence was quashed and replaced with three years and six months’ imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the appeal against conviction, but allowed the appeal against sentence and substituted three years and six months’ imprisonment for five years.
• Crown Court at Lewes On 16 July 2004, following a jury trial before Judge Scott-Gall, convicted the appellant of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and common assault; sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment and four months’ imprisonment concurrently.