Lamaletie Anor v R.

An allegation in interview that the complainant behaved reprehensibly is an attack on character for the purposes of the bad-character gateway in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The fact that the allegation is made in support of self-defence does not prevent the gateway being engaged, although it may matter to the court’s discretion.

Where that gateway is properly engaged, a significant record of violent convictions may assist the jury in assessing the defendant’s credibility. Its incidental tendency to suggest propensity does not itself make the evidence inadmissible. A conviction based on joint enterprise cannot stand where the jury were directed to decide liability on a supposed shared agreement for which there was no evidential basis, rather than on the case advanced by the prosecution.

Mervyn Lamaletie and Karen Royce v The Queen appealed against convictions at the Crown Court at Wood Green for inflicting grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Lamaletie challenged the admission of six previous convictions for violence after he alleged in interview that the minicab-driver complainant had attacked him and Royce. He said that the evidence should not have been admitted under the bad-character provisions.

The Crown’s case against Royce was joint enterprise. It was accepted that she had not caused the complainant’s broken jaws. The central issue was whether the jury had been properly directed on the basis on which she could be jointly responsible for that injury.

1. Lamaletie’s appeal was dismissed. His interview account alleged that the complainant had initiated an unprovoked and wide-ranging attack. By section 106 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, that was an allegation of reprehensible conduct and therefore an attack on the complainant’s character within section 101(1)(g). Self-defence did not prevent the gateway being engaged. It was instead a consideration relevant to the judge’s discretion under section 101(3). The Recorder was entitled to conclude that Lamaletie had gone beyond the minimum allegation inherent in self-defence.

2. The Crown’s earlier indication that it would not seek to adduce bad-character evidence did not itself make the later application unfair. There was no substantive unfairness in its admission. The Recorder’s ruling was conditional on the interview evidence being given before the jury learnt of the convictions, and that condition was met.

3. The six convictions for violence could assist the jury in deciding whether Lamaletie’s or the complainant’s account was truthful. Their possible incidental tendency to suggest a propensity for violence did not preclude admission through the character-attack gateway. A bare list of convictions could be relevant for that limited credibility exercise; full details were not invariably necessary for a propensity application either. The Recorder’s reference to a history of untruthfulness was factually unfortunate, but there was no real possibility that the jury understood it as a direction based on previous not-guilty pleas or were misled by it.

4. Royce’s appeal was allowed. Her section 20 conviction was quashed and a conviction for common assault substituted. Her sentence was reduced to 102 hours’ unpaid work under a community order, being work already completed.

   The Crown’s case capable of supporting joint enterprise was that Royce encouraged and assisted Lamaletie during the later, heavier assault. The Recorder instead directed the jury to decide whether, when Royce first swung her handbag, she was acting pursuant to a shared agreement to harm the complainant. There was no evidence capable of establishing a common intention formed before that spontaneous first blow. The court could not uphold the conviction on the different basis advanced by the Crown but not put to the jury.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — in [2008] EWCA Crim 314, dismissed Lamaletie’s conviction appeal and allowed Royce’s appeal, substituting common assault for grievous bodily harm.
• Crown Court at Wood Green — on 16 May 2007, convicted both appellants of inflicting grievous bodily harm contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861; sentences were imposed on 8 June 2007.