Kazantzis, R. v (Rev 2)

A verdict is not rendered unsafe merely because a jury faces a practical limit on the available deliberation time. Jurors should ordinarily deliberate free from time pressure. However, the safety of a verdict depends on the whole circumstances.

Where the judge clearly directs the jury to return verdicts only if it can do so conscientiously, and to expect discharge if it cannot, the appellate court will ordinarily assume that the jury followed that direction unless there is a proper basis for concluding otherwise. Speculation about how the jury allocated its time, or whether differing verdicts were a compromise, will not establish that a conviction is unsafe.

The appellant was tried at York Crown Court in April 2009 on charges of sexual assault by penetration, contrary to section 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and false imprisonment. The jury acquitted him of sexual assault but convicted him of false imprisonment.

After beginning deliberations on the Wednesday afternoon, the jury resumed on Maundy Thursday. Because the court could not sit beyond midday and a substantial Easter adjournment would otherwise follow, the judge told the jury that it should reach verdicts only if it could do so conscientiously; otherwise it would be discharged.

Leave to appeal was refused on three grounds, but granted on the contention that the time constraint placed undue pressure on the jury and made the false-imprisonment conviction unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The conviction for false imprisonment was safe. The trial judge faced difficult administrative constraints, but adopted the best available course by explaining them openly and directing the jury in clear terms that it must not feel under time pressure.

2. The jury was told that it should return verdicts only if it could conscientiously do so within the available period. If it could not, it would be discharged and the case retried. There was no proper basis for inferring that the jury disregarded that direction. A jury is ordinarily taken to heed a clear and intelligible judicial direction on a matter of law and procedure.

3. The court rejected the submission that the jury must have rushed its consideration of false imprisonment after spending time on the more complex sexual-assault count. That submission was speculative. The court could not know how the jury divided its deliberations. The different verdicts instead supported the view that the jury considered each count separately, as directed.

4. The court considered R v Baker 1998 Criminal Law Review 351-1. It endorsed the general guidance that jurors should be allowed to deliberate without time pressure, but regarded a close factual comparison as unhelpful. Baker illustrated that the existence of some time pressure does not inevitably make a verdict unsafe; safety depends on the circumstances of the particular trial.

5. Here, the trial was short, the jury had deliberated for just over three and a half hours in total, and it received repeated and unambiguous reassurance that it should not return verdicts unless conscientiously able to do so. The court was satisfied that the jury deliberated free from undue pressure of time.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against the false-imprisonment conviction. Leave was refused on the first three proposed grounds and granted only on the complaint about time pressure during deliberations.
• York Crown Court: in April 2009, the appellant was acquitted of sexual assault by penetration and convicted of false imprisonment.