Thornhill, R (on the application of) v Uxbridge Magistrates Court

An information may be amended after the six-month limitation period where the proposed offence alleges the same misdoing as the original offence and the amendment is in the interests of justice. A court must distinguish between different failures to provide specimens. A failure to provide a urine specimen is not the same misdoing as a failure to provide a breath specimen. Where the proposed charge concerns distinct wrongdoing, the amendment cannot be permitted under the applicable principles.

The claimant sought judicial review of the decision of Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on 22 May 2007. The magistrates had permitted the prosecution to amend an existing information and lay a new information charging failure to provide a urine specimen, although the six-month period for laying an information had expired.

The claimant had originally been charged with failure to provide a breath specimen and had pleaded guilty, but it was accepted that the plea and charge were inappropriate because a medical reason prevented him from providing breath. The central issue was whether the proposed urine-specimen charge alleged the same misdoing as the original breath-specimen charge.

1. The decision was quashed. The magistrates had erred in permitting the prosecution to amend the existing information and lay the new information.
2. Under Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, section 127, an information generally must be laid within six months of the offence. The principles governing amendment after that period permit an amendment alleging a different offence only where it alleges the same misdoing as the original offence and the amendment is in the interests of justice.
3. The distinction between the original and proposed charges was material. Failure to provide a breath specimen and failure to provide a urine specimen constituted different wrongdoing. The proposed charge therefore did not allege the same misdoing as the original charge.
4. Because the same-misdoing requirement was not satisfied, it was unnecessary to decide whether the amendment would have been in the interests of justice.
5. The claimant was entitled to the costs order sought on presentation of the relevant certificate.

The judgment does not state a prior appellate decision in the same proceedings. The claim was a judicial review challenge to the decision of Uxbridge Magistrates' Court dated 22 May 2007.