T v R.

An offence of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice requires both the requisite intent and an act which creates a significant risk of affecting justice. The act need not actually succeed in perverting justice.

In a criminal case, the course of justice includes police investigation. Deleting material which may make an investigation more difficult or mislead investigators can therefore have the necessary tendency. Later recovery of the material does not remove that tendency, provided that effective deletion was possible when the act was done.

The appellant was convicted in the Crown Court at Northampton of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. She had deleted files with titles suggesting child sexual abuse material from a memory stick after her daughter brought them to her attention.

The prosecution alleged that she acted to prevent an investigation into her husband, who had previously been convicted of offences concerning indecent images of children. The appellant maintained that she believed the material was adult pornography and deleted it solely to protect her daughters.

On appeal, she contended that there was insufficient evidence that deletion tended to pervert the course of justice, particularly because an expert later recovered the files’ titles and contents. The central issue was whether the deletion created the requisite tendency despite its eventual lack of effect.

1. Appeal dismissed. The jury was entitled to find that the appellant deliberately deleted the files in order to impede a police investigation. Her lies about the files’ titles, coupled with their deletion, supported the finding that she intended to pervert the course of public justice.

2. The offence requires both an intention to pervert justice and an act tending to do so. An act which can have no effect on the course of justice does not suffice. However, the offence is complete when an act, done with the requisite intent, creates a significant risk of affecting justice. It remains criminal even if it ultimately has no effect.

3. In criminal proceedings, the course of justice includes the police investigation of a possible offence. An act which makes such an investigation more difficult, or may mislead police, can tend to pervert the course of justice. The court treated R v Rafique [1993] 4 All ER 1 as materially indistinguishable: disposal of relevant material may satisfy the tendency element although the police later recover it.

4. It was immaterial that a deleted file might not have contained child sexual abuse material, or that its deletion might initially prejudice a potential suspect. The file title could prompt investigation and arrest; timely production of the undeleted file could instead have resolved the matter at an earlier stage. Nor did eventual expert recovery establish that deletion was inconsequential. Further use of the memory stick could have overwritten the files and made recovery impossible.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The appellant’s appeal against conviction was dismissed: [2011] EWCA Crim 729.
• Crown Court at Northampton: The appellant was convicted of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.