Wilson, R v

Evidence that searches disclosed no similar local offences after an accused’s arrest may be relevant circumstantial evidence on identity. It is admissible where a jury can rationally assess whether the absence of further offences supports the prosecution case. Other possible explanations for that absence go to weight, rather than admissibility. The evidence is not unfairly prejudicial merely because the true offender might have changed area, stopped offending, died, or been detained.

The appellant was convicted at the Crown Court at Wood Green of seven robberies and unlawful wounding. The robberies involved a masked man carrying a knife. The central trial issue was whether the appellant was the robber.

The prosecution called a crime-monitoring witness who had searched police records and found no similar offences in the relevant area after the appellant’s arrest. The Recorder admitted that evidence. On appeal, the appellant contended that it was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial. He also sought to rely on a late, unsigned draft witness statement concerning robberies in a different area.

The single judge referred the sentence appeal because an imprisonment-for-public-protection sentence had been imposed for the wounding count.

1. The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The crime-monitoring evidence was probative of the identification issue. If the jury considered that similar robberies would probably have continued had the appellant not been the offender, their absence after his arrest could support the prosecution case.

2. The evidence was admissible as circumstantial evidence. Its force was a matter for the jury, which was well able to assess the proposed inference and the competing explanations. The defence could submit that the real robber had changed area, ceased offending, died, or been arrested, imprisoned or hospitalised. Those possibilities could undermine or negate the inference, but did not make the evidence irrelevant or unfairly prejudicial.

3. The court refused to admit the late draft witness statement. It was unsigned, its late production was unexplained, and it was neither sufficiently reliable nor credible to affect the result. It concerned robberies more than five miles from the relevant area.

4. The sentence appeal was allowed to a limited extent. The imprisonment-for-public-protection sentence for the wounding count, contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act, was quashed. It was replaced by a sentence of two years’ imprisonment with a two-year extension.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the conviction appeal and allowed the sentence appeal to the extent of quashing the imprisonment-for-public-protection sentence for wounding.
• Crown Court at Wood Green On 7 and 8 June 2007, convicted the appellant of seven counts of robbery and one count of unlawful wounding, and imposed imprisonment for public protection with a minimum term of four years less 212 days.