Remice, R. v

Where a defendant has only an old and irrelevant conviction, the trial judge should direct the jury to treat the defendant as being of effective good character and should give both the credibility and propensity limbs of the conventional direction. Once the judge decides that a good-character direction is warranted, it is not for the jury to decide whether good character may be used in the defendant’s favour.

An erroneous good-character direction will not render a conviction unsafe where the jury would plainly have treated the defendant as of good character and the evidence on the live issue was strong. The duration and overall effect of financial orders may justify reducing prosecution costs, while preserving compensation as the priority payment.

The appellant was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. She had bitten a market trader who intervened when she attempted to take money from a till after being refused a refund. Her defence was that she had bitten him in lawful self-defence after he unlawfully restrained her.

She appealed against conviction on the ground that the trial judge had wrongly left it to the jury to decide whether she should be treated as a person of good character. Her only conviction was for theft in 1981, when she was 17, followed by a long period of creditable conduct.

She also appealed against financial orders requiring compensation and prosecution costs to be paid by weekly instalments. The central issues were whether the good-character misdirection made the conviction unsafe and whether the financial orders should be varied.

1. The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The trial judge erred by leaving it to the jury to decide whether the appellant should be treated as a person of good character. In a clear case involving only an old and irrelevant conviction, the judge should direct the jury to treat the defendant as of effective good character and give both limbs of the conventional direction.

2. Once the judge has decided that a good-character direction is appropriate, the jury should not be invited to decide whether good character is relevant in the defendant’s favour. The appellant’s previous conviction was nearly 30 years old, modest, and irrelevant to the charged assault. The only reasonable direction was therefore an effective-good-character direction.

3. The error did not make the conviction unsafe. The jury had been strongly steered towards treating the appellant as of good character and had received both the credibility and propensity limbs. The case was uncomplicated. The appellant admitted the bite, and the live issue was whether she acted in self-defence. Her account of being grabbed from behind conflicted with the evidence of the other prosecution witnesses, while she was attempting to take money from the till.

4. The appeal against sentence was allowed to a limited extent. The court left the £500 compensation order intact, payable first at £5 per week. It reduced prosecution costs from £500 to £250, also payable at £5 per week after compensation, because the total duration of the original order was excessive despite deficient evidence of the appellant’s means.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Conviction appeal dismissed. Sentence appeal allowed to the limited extent of reducing prosecution costs from £500 to £250.
• Inner London Crown Court: On 18 June 2009 the appellant was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and acquitted of a separate count of assault by beating. She received a three-month suspended sentence, compensation of £500 and prosecution costs of £500.