Dawes & Ors v R.

Where a Crown accomplice gives materially expanded evidence against an accused after earlier accounts omitted that implication, and the evidence is indispensable to the relevant count, the jury should receive a clear warning to approach it with special caution. The need for a warning remains fact-sensitive, but it may be essential where the witness has no viable explanation for the change and may expect substantial sentencing credit.

A disclosure deficiency does not make a conviction unsafe unless it realistically assists an identified defence or undermines the evidence as a whole. The defence statement is relevant to defining the issues requiring disclosure.

Four appellants were convicted after a ten-week trial at the Crown Court at Nottingham of conspiracies to supply heroin and amphetamine, and of conspiracy to launder money. The Crown relied substantially on evidence from four former participants in the operation, financial evidence, police observations and records seized from the appellants’ homes.

Ryan Smith challenged his drug-conspiracy convictions principally because the trial judge gave no adequate warning about Kristian Barsby’s accomplice evidence. Barsby’s trial evidence implicated Smith much more extensively than his earlier witness statements. John Dawes and Arthur Dawes raised disclosure and summing-up complaints. The court also considered the safety of Rebecca Bridge’s conviction and the sentences imposed.

Appeals allowed in part. Ryan Smith’s appeals against conviction on the two drug-conspiracy counts were allowed. His conviction and sentence for conspiracy to launder money were upheld. The appeals of John Dawes and Arthur Dawes against conviction and sentence were dismissed. Rebecca Bridge’s conviction was also safe.

1. The court applied R v Makanjuola [1995] 1WLR 1348. There is no automatic requirement for a corroboration warning, but the judge must decide whether a warning is required on the facts. A specific caution was required for Barsby’s evidence against Smith. Barsby had omitted Smith’s alleged drug-conspiracy role from several earlier statements, gave no viable explanation for the omission, later materially increased Smith’s role, and had not yet been sentenced.

2. Absent Barsby’s evidence, the prosecution did not contend that there was a case against Smith on the drug-conspiracy counts. The court could therefore not be satisfied that those convictions were safe. The separate money-laundering conviction was safe because clear evidence implicated Smith in the East Midlands Airport cash-smuggling incident.

3. The disclosure complaints did not assist John Dawes or Arthur Dawes. Disclosure is not a one-way process: the defence had not clearly identified the contention that John Dawes was not the person denoted by “J” in the records. Although there may have been a deficiency in primary disclosure concerning others involved in events on 29 April 2003, it did not realistically exculpate John Dawes or undermine the overwhelming accomplice evidence against him.

4. The admission of John Dawes’s disputed conversation with the police liaison officer was fair. Its probative value justified admission, despite the alleged breach of Code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

5. Arthur Dawes’s late account that he handled money and records for cigarette smuggling rather than drug trafficking was fanciful on the evidence. His conviction was safe; consequently, so was Bridge’s conviction. The custodial terms were not manifestly excessive.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed Ryan Smith’s appeal against conviction on the two drug-conspiracy counts, but dismissed his appeal concerning the money-laundering count and sentence. Dismissed John Dawes’s and Arthur Dawes’s conviction and sentence appeals, and upheld Rebecca Bridge’s conviction.
• Crown Court at Nottingham: On 11 May 2005, Judge Pert QC and a jury convicted the appellants of the offences charged following a ten-week trial.