Joseph v R.

Later expert guidance treating low-level gunshot-residue findings as inconclusive does not itself make a conviction unsafe. The appellate question is whether the trial evidence and the judge’s directions materially misled the jury about the evidential significance of the findings.

A defendant without convictions will ordinarily receive a good-character direction. The direction may, however, be confined to propensity where admitted dishonesty and lies make a qualified credibility direction unhelpful or unfair. Directions must be read as a whole and in their trial context.

The applicant was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of murder, firearms offences, possessing ammunition without a certificate, and possessing cocaine with intent to supply. He received life imprisonment for murder with a minimum term of 17 years and four months, with concurrent sentences for the remaining offences.

On a referral by the single judge, he sought permission to appeal convictions on counts 1 to 4. The principal ground relied on later Forensic Science Service guidance concerning low-level gunshot residue. He also challenged directions on good character, a mobile telephone, and a hostile witness. The central issue was whether any of those matters rendered the convictions arguably unsafe.

1. Permission to appeal was refused. None of the grounds rendered the verdicts arguably unsafe.

2. The later guidance did not show that the jury had been misled about the gunshot-residue evidence. At trial the expert had made the necessary concessions: the particles could have been transferred innocently; their source and time of deposit could not be determined; and the particle on the glove might not have been Type 1. The Recorder fairly directed the jury on those limits. The evidence could not prove that the applicant fired the murder weapon, but it remained relevant as part of the circumstantial case concerning his association with the gun bag. This was unlike Barry George [2007] EWCA Crim 2722, where the jury had been misled as to the significance of a single particle.

3. The Recorder was entitled to give an unqualified propensity limb of the good-character direction while omitting the credibility limb. Although the applicant had no convictions, he admitted criminal dishonesty and repeated lies. A credibility direction would have required extensive qualifications that could have damaged the defence. The approach was consistent with the practical, fact-sensitive discretion described in Gray [2004] EWCA Crim 1074 and Aziz [1995] 2 CrAppR 483.

4. The propensity direction was sufficiently emphatic when read as a whole. The judge conveyed that the jury should take the applicant’s good character into account, while leaving the weight to them. The directions concerning telephone 6169 did not invite an inference that the applicant owned it. Ownership was immaterial; the relevant issue was whether the evidence linked him with Abdullah and the telephone.

5. The hostile-witness direction correctly confined the jury to the witness’s oral evidence and excluded the unsigned pre-trial statement as evidence of the motorcycle’s colour. If the jury accepted, or thought they might accept, the oral evidence that the motorcycle was red, its significance for the defence was obvious. No further direction was required.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The single judge referred the application for permission to appeal convictions on counts 1 to 4 to the full court. The full court refused leave, leaving the convictions undisturbed.
• Central Criminal Court: On 2 March 2004, following a jury trial before HH Judge Michael Hyam QC, Recorder of London, the applicant was convicted of murder and related firearms, ammunition and drugs offences.