Cakir, R. v

A conviction is unsafe where material undisclosed information could have affected the jury’s assessment of an important prosecution witness and the appellate court cannot say that the verdict would have been the same without that evidence. This applies particularly where the witness relied on professional experience and integrity to support emphatic evidence on a disputed issue. The existence of other incriminating evidence, or a co-defendant’s conviction, does not remove that doubt where the jury may have relied upon the disputed evidence and the directions did not permit a safe inference that the offence was complete without it.

The appellant was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of blackmail and sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment. The prosecution relied on evidence from a Turkish interpreter who said that a poor-quality covert recording contained a death threat by the appellant.

After trial, it emerged that the interpreter had been suspended from the Metropolitan Police interpreters list before giving evidence. The suspension concerned his claiming practices and conduct when taking witness statements. Neither trial counsel had been told. The appeal asked whether the resulting non-disclosure rendered the conviction unsafe.

1. Appeal allowed. The conviction was unsafe and was quashed. No retrial was ordered.

2. The interpreter’s evidence was emphatic and concerned a central factual dispute: whether the appellant’s final words were a death threat. He had stressed both the repeated listening undertaken and his professional experience and integrity when presenting that conclusion to the jury.

3. The undisclosed suspension was capable of affecting how the jury assessed both the interpreter’s presentation and the certainty of his evidence. Although the grounds of suspension did not concern his linguistic ability, they bore upon integrity. The court could not safely treat that information as immaterial to the jury’s evaluation of his evidence.

4. There was other evidence capable of supporting the allegation of demanding money with menaces. However, the alleged death threat was the last thing said before the appellant left and was likely to have had a substantial impact. The court could not say that the appellant would have been convicted if that evidence had not been given.

5. The co-defendant’s conviction did not establish that the offence had necessarily been complete before the disputed words. The recorder had left the case against both defendants on a standard joint-enterprise direction, without distinguishing the later words allegedly spoken by the appellant after the co-defendant had left.

6. Given the time already spent in custody, the court concluded that there should be no retrial.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal against conviction in [2005] EWCA Crim 1286, quashed the conviction and ordered no retrial.
• Inner London Crown Court: The appellant was convicted of blackmail on 9 July 2004 and sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment.