Essen v Director of Public Prosecutions

Applications to adjourn criminal proceedings are discretionary, but must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. The court must examine the circumstances leading to the application, its reasons, the consequences for both parties, and any responsibility for the difficulty. The overriding question is fairness, while recognising the importance of speedy summary justice.

An appellate court will usually defer to the trial court, particularly where reasons have been given. However, where a prosecution adjournment is granted after prosecution witnesses were not warned to attend, and the magistrates give no reasons identifying any countervailing consideration, the decision cannot be upheld. The fact that an earlier defence application was refused does not itself make the later prosecution application unreasonable or require equality of outcome.

The claimant was convicted by Colchester Magistrates' Court of driving while unfit through drink or drugs and careless driving. The trial was repeatedly adjourned. On 30 December 2002, the prosecution sought an adjournment because its witnesses had not been warned to attend, although the claimant, her witnesses and both representatives were present. The magistrates granted the application without recording reasons.

The trial later proceeded and the claimant appealed by way of case stated. The questions included whether the prosecution adjournment was unlawful or unreasonable, whether the trial could continue after a lengthy interval, and whether the prosecution could call further continuity evidence.

1. Appeal allowed. The court set aside the magistrates' decision granting the prosecution's adjournment and quashed the conviction. In the absence of reasons, the court could not uphold the decision or be satisfied that relevant considerations had been taken into account.
2. The decision whether to adjourn is pre-eminently a discretionary decision. The magistrates must examine the circumstances leading to the application, the reasons for it, and the consequences for both prosecution and defence. They must decide what fairness requires, bearing in mind both the need for speedy summary justice and the parties' responsibility for the difficulty. Applications must receive rigorous scrutiny.
3. The court is ordinarily slow to interfere, especially where the trial court has given reasons. Reasons need not be elaborate, but they must disclose a decision that can be supported and must show, expressly or inferentially, that relevant considerations were addressed.
4. The prosecution's failure to warn its witnesses was apparently the sole cause of their absence. The case stated disclosed no reason for granting an adjournment and no countervailing consideration capable of justifying rescuing the prosecution from the consequences of its own neglect. If refusal would have caused the prosecution to fail, that consequence did not by itself justify an adjournment.
5. The earlier refusal of a defence adjournment, sought for inconvenience, did not make the subsequent prosecution adjournment unlawful. Each application had to be assessed on its own circumstances, and inconvenience did not necessarily prevent the defence from presenting its case fairly.
6. The court did not determine the first two referred questions concerning the alleged prosecution concession and the continuation of the part-heard trial, because its conclusion on the adjournment issue disposed of the appeal.

• Colchester Magistrates' Court: convicted the claimant on 7 April 2004 and rejected the challenge to the prosecution's adjournment.
• High Court (Administrative Court): allowed the appeal by way of case stated, set aside the adjournment decision and quashed the conviction.