Kordansinki, R. v

In criminal proceedings, a properly authenticated foreign conviction may be admitted as bad-character evidence through the statutory gateways in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Admissibility and proof are distinct questions. The former common-law rule associated with Hollington v Hewthorn does not exclude such evidence in criminal cases.

Foreign court records may prove the conviction under the Evidence Act 1851, but fairness requires the material placed before the jury to be confined to an appropriate and comprehensible account. An extended sentence must also be proportionate. Its extension period must be justified by the evidence and by what can realistically be achieved during it.

The appellant was convicted in the Crown Court at Southwark of rape, assault by penetration and false imprisonment. He received ten years’ imprisonment for rape and a ten-year extension period under section 85 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000.

He renewed applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence. The principal conviction issues concerned the admission and proof of Polish convictions for sexual offences and false imprisonment as bad-character evidence. He also challenged restrictions on cross-examination about sexual photographs and contended that the verdicts were inconsistent.

The central questions were whether foreign convictions were admissible and sufficiently proved, whether their admission was unfair, and whether the maximum extension period was proportionate.

1. Conviction appeal dismissed. The Polish convictions were admissible as bad-character evidence through sections 101(1)(d) and (g), read with section 103, of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They were relevant to propensity and to the appellant’s attack on the complainant’s character. Admission was not unfair under section 101(3). The prosecution case did not depend wholly or mainly on the previous convictions or on unsupported evidence from the complainant.

2. The court distinguished admissibility from proof. Section 99(1) abolished, in criminal proceedings, any surviving common-law exclusionary rule associated with Hollington v Hewthorn [1943] 1 KB 587. Foreign convictions could not be singled out for exclusion from the statutory bad-character regime.

3. The authenticated Polish court records were capable of proving the convictions under section 7 of the Evidence Act 1851. Although the whole record was formally provable, fairness would not permit its wholesale admission before a jury. The agreed short account of the offences was appropriate. The appellant could, and did, challenge the factual basis of the convictions in his evidence. The rebuttable presumption in section 74(3) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 did not apply.

4. The court rejected the remaining conviction grounds. The verdicts were not logically inconsistent. Any possible error in limiting cross-examination about photographs did not render the convictions unsafe, since two photographs and the relevant defence evidence were before the jury. The summing-up was fair and balanced.

5. Sentence appeal allowed in part. Applying the guidance in R v Nelson [2002] 1 Cr App R(S) 134, the court held that the ten-year extension period was disproportionate. It left the ten-year custodial term unchanged but reduced the extension period from ten years to five years.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2006] EWCA Crim 2984, dismissed the conviction appeal and allowed the sentence appeal only to reduce the extension period from ten years to five years.
• Crown Court at Southwark: On 14 October 2005, the appellant was convicted of rape, assault by penetration and false imprisonment. He received ten years’ imprisonment for rape with a ten-year extension period under section 85 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000, with concurrent sentences on the other counts.