Lal, R. v

Where a defence of duress is properly raised and the evidence does not compel its rejection, the issue should remain for the jury. A judge should not withdraw the defence on findings of voluntary exposure to the risk of compulsion without giving counsel an opportunity to address that proposed course. A guilty plea entered after such a ruling may produce an unsafe conviction where the ruling removed a live defence from the jury.

The appellant was convicted at Harrow Crown Court after changing his pleas to guilty to criminal damage, theft and attempted theft. He had contended at trial that two drug dealers had compelled him by threats of violence to break into a car and steal its contents.

Before the summing-up, counsel addressed the judge on the directions relevant to duress and voluntary exposure to risk. The judge instead withdrew duress from the jury, finding that the appellant had voluntarily exposed himself to a foreseeable risk of being compelled to commit crime. The appellant sought an extension of time and leave to appeal against conviction after the single judge had refused leave.

1. The court granted an extension of time and leave to appeal, treated the renewed application as the appeal by consent, and allowed it. The convictions were quashed because they were unsafe.
2. The judge had been asked to determine the appropriate direction on duress. Instead, after making factual findings, she held that the appellant had voluntarily exposed himself to a risk which he knew or ought reasonably to have foreseen, and withdrew duress from the jury.
3. That course was wrong in the circumstances. Neither party had been given an opportunity to address the judge on withdrawing the defence altogether. The Crown accepted that the facts were not so clear or undisputed that no properly directed jury could have failed to find duress disproved. The appellant's account might have been unlikely, but it nevertheless raised an issue which could not properly be removed from the jury in that manner.
4. The court could not therefore regard the guilty-plea convictions, entered following that ruling, as safe.
5. No retrial was ordered. The appellant had served very much the greater part of his sentence and the Crown did not seek a retrial. In all the circumstances, a retrial was not appropriate.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In [2009] EWCA Crim 2393, the court granted an extension of time and leave to appeal, allowed the appeal, quashed the convictions and declined to order a retrial.
• Crown Court at Harrow: The appellant was convicted following changed pleas to guilty of criminal damage, theft and attempted theft, after the judge withdrew the defence of duress from the jury.