Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v King & Anor (Rev 1)

A statutory certificate which makes compliance with a prosecution limitation period conclusive must comply with the statutory requirements in both form and substance. A later witness statement recording that the prosecutor previously signed a certificate does not itself become the statutory certificate, particularly where the signatory is not purporting to certify the relevant matters at the time. Evidence introduced after the prosecution has closed its case is also subject to ordinary fairness requirements, including an opportunity for cross-examination and, where necessary, an application to reopen the case.

The RSPCA appealed by case stated against the dismissal of six informations at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court. The district judge held that the informations were outside the ordinary six-month limitation period in section 127(1) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, and that the prosecution had not proved entitlement to rely on the extended period under section 31 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

After the prosecution closed its case, it produced an unsigned copy of an alleged certificate and a statement from its case manager saying that he had signed the certificate months earlier. The central issue was whether those documents established compliance with section 31.

1. Appeal dismissed. The district judge was entitled to conclude that the prosecution had not established that the informations were laid within the statutory limitation period.

2. Section 31 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 provides an extended limitation regime for offences under the Act. Section 31(2) makes a properly signed certificate conclusive, subject to limited qualifications, as to the date on which sufficient evidence came to the prosecutor’s knowledge. That conclusive effect justified requiring strict compliance with the statutory requirements.

3. The unsigned document exhibited to the case manager’s statement was not a compliant certificate. Nor did the statement and exhibit together constitute one. When the statement was signed, the case manager was recording an historic event and was not purporting to issue a certificate under the Act. A person signing such a certificate must apply his mind to the certification and have the relevant facts in mind at that time.

4. The surrounding inconsistencies also provided grounds for doubting the accuracy of the case manager’s recollection. The approach in Burwell v Director of Public Prosecutions [2009] EWHC 1069 (Admin), concerning a materially indistinguishable statutory certificate provision in the Computer Misuse Act 1990, supported strict compliance with the statutory form.

5. The alternative argument that the statement should simply have been admitted in evidence was correctly abandoned. The defence had raised and explored the issue, the case manager was not available for cross-examination, and the prosecution had closed its case without applying to reopen it. The court did not decide whether section 31 requires a certificate to exist before proceedings are commenced; that question was left for a case in which it arose on proper facts and argument.

Costs were awarded to the respondents against the appellant. The court declined to order payment from central funds.

• High Court (Administrative Court): appeal by case stated dismissed. The court upheld the district judge’s dismissal of the informations.