Osbourne, R v

Evidence of a defendant’s mental illness and verbal aggression is not admissible as bad-character or important explanatory evidence where it establishes no relevant link with the violent offence charged. Conduct must cross the statutory threshold of reprehensible behaviour in its proper context. Important explanatory evidence must both assist the jury’s understanding of other evidence and have substantial value to the case as a whole. The background-evidence principle likewise turns on relevance and necessity.

Wrongly admitted evidence does not make a conviction unsafe where the directions effectively minimise it, the jury are told not to use the medical condition, and there is no real possibility that it contributed to a verdict otherwise supported by strong evidence.

Gary Osbourne was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of murdering Gary Hunt and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 15 years. The prosecution relied on alleged confessions to two acquaintances, circumstantial telephone and location evidence, and lies told in interview.

The trial judge admitted evidence that Osbourne had reported schizophrenia and had not taken medication, together with evidence from Karen Impey that he sometimes shouted at her when not taking it. The evidence was admitted as important explanatory bad-character evidence under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

On appeal, Osbourne contended that the evidence was neither reprehensible behaviour nor relevant explanatory or background evidence, and that its admission made the conviction unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court held that the evidence concerning the appellant’s behaviour when not taking medication had been wrongly admitted, but that the conviction remained safe.

2. The evidence that the appellant sometimes shouted at his partner in a domestic setting, while never being violent, did not amount to reprehensible behaviour in the context of a charge of murdering a close friend. There was no medical or other evidence connecting schizophrenia, failure to take medication, or verbal aggression with physical violence. The evidence was therefore neither important explanatory evidence under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 nor relevant background history.

3. The court distinguished R v Fulcher [1995] 2 Cr App R 251, where evidence of the defendant’s reaction to a crying child was connected with injuries to that child and was capable of proving motive. It applied the reasoning in R v Dolan [2002] EWCA Crim 1859: anger directed at inanimate objects was irrelevant to violence towards people, and the appellant’s shouting was still less relevant to murder.

4. The summing-up substantially reduced any possible prejudice. The jury were expressly directed not to take the medical condition into account and were told that the evidence might add nothing. In light of the alleged confessions, the circumstantial evidence and the appellant’s lies, there was no real possibility that the inadmissible evidence contributed to the verdict.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — dismissed the appeal against conviction: [2007] EWCA Crim 481.
• Central Criminal Court — convicted the appellant of murder and imposed life imprisonment with a minimum term of 15 years.