Manifold, R. v

When an appellate court reviews a complaint that a summing-up was unbalanced, it must assess the summing-up and trial as a whole. A judge who rehearses prosecution arguments should fairly identify material counterarguments for the defence. Even a real lack of balance will not render convictions unsafe unless it deflected the jury from a fair resolution of the central issue.

Knowingly assisting false passport applications is serious offending and ordinarily merits imprisonment in the region of three years. Dishonesty by a solicitor aggravates seriousness. Good character and substantial delay not caused by the offender may nevertheless make a higher sentence manifestly excessive.

The appellant, a solicitor, was convicted at Bristol Crown Court after a retrial of 14 counts arising from false passport applications. The prosecution alleged that he knowingly countersigned photographs of people who were not the applicants. He maintained that he knew the persons presenting the applications and had been deceived by supporting documents.

He appealed against conviction on the ground that the trial judge's summing-up was unfairly unbalanced. He also appealed against his sentence of 54 months' imprisonment. The central question on conviction was whether shortcomings in the summing-up made the verdicts unsafe.

1. The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The court accepted that parts of the summing-up lacked balance. In particular, the judge repeated prosecution arguments on motive and inconsistencies in the appellant's accounts without fairly identifying the corresponding defence arguments. Where a judge elects to make such comments, they must be fair and balanced.
2. The defect did not make the convictions unsafe. The court assessed the summing-up in the context of the four-week trial and the evidence as a whole. The jury had a clear and simple issue: whether the appellant dishonestly countersigned photographs without a proper basis for treating them as photographs of the applicants. The jury rejected his account, and the shortcomings in the summing-up were not sufficiently unfair to deflect it from a fair resolution of that issue.
3. The appeal against sentence was allowed. Assisting with false passports is serious offending. The court applied the sentencing guidance identified in R v Costley [2007] EWCA Crim 3187 and R v Cheema [2002] 2 Cr App R(S) 79, which placed such offending in the region of three years' imprisonment. The appellant's status as a solicitor materially aggravated the offence because professional dishonesty was itself grave.
4. Nevertheless, 54 months was manifestly excessive when his good character, the substantial delay before retrial, and his conduct in prison were taken into account. The court quashed that sentence and substituted 36 months' imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — In [2011] EWCA Crim 1271, the court dismissed the appeal against conviction but allowed the appeal against sentence, reducing imprisonment from 54 to 36 months.
• Bristol Crown Court — The appellant was convicted after a retrial on 18 December 2009 of 14 counts concerning false passport applications. On 19 February 2010, he was sentenced to 54 months' imprisonment.