Pittard, R. v

Evidence of a defendant’s conduct after the charged incident may be excluded from the jury’s consideration as evidence of earlier aggression where, on any account, intervening events provide an alternative explanation. Allegations against later-arriving police officers are only marginally relevant to the charge against another officer unless they support a case of a concerted false account.

Although written admissions should ordinarily be supplied to the jury when relevant and unobjectionable, an omission will not render a conviction unsafe where their substance was read out and the evidence could not assist the defence. Provocation is not a defence to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The appellant was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on a police officer. The central factual issue was whether he attacked the first officer to arrive, as that officer alleged, or whether the officer used CS gas against him while he was peaceful and then fell.

On appeal, the appellant relied cumulatively on the trial judge’s interventions during cross-examination, comments and directions in the summing-up, the response to a jury question about provocation, and the refusal to send written admissions concerning a telephone call to the jury. He contended that the judge had entered the arena and that the conviction was unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court was satisfied that the conviction was safe. Although some of the judge’s impatient interventions and wording were regrettable, the real issue was clearly left to the jury, which had heard the competing accounts and been repeatedly reminded that the facts were for it.

2. The judge was entitled to direct the jury to disregard the later events involving the two supporting officers, except insofar as they arrested the appellant. Conduct when arrested, after the appellant had been sprayed with CS gas on either account, could not reliably show aggression at the earlier incident. The appellant’s allegations that the later officers had mistreated him did not bear materially on whether the first officer had been assaulted. There was no suggestion of a concerted false account by the officers.

3. The direction on bad character did not make the conviction unsafe. Once bad-character evidence was admissible through a statutory gateway, it was relevant for any purpose for which it was relevant, as explained in Highton & ors [2005] EWCA Crim 1985. The judge in fact confined its use to the appellant’s truthfulness and gave an unchallenged warning against reasoning from convictions to guilt.

4. The judge correctly answered the jury’s question by stating that provocation was not a defence to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He was not required, and would have been unwise, to reopen the evidence or invite an enquiry into particular aspects of the first officer’s account.

5. Relevant written admissions should ordinarily be supplied to a jury if unobjectionable. Here, however, their omission caused no unfairness: the judge read the admission aloud and the timing of the logged call showed that it could not have been the call the appellant claimed to have made before the incident.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against conviction and held the conviction safe: [2006] EWCA Crim 2028.

• Trial court: convicted the appellant of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on a police officer. The court and citation are not stated in the judgment.