Sundas, R. v

Where an article is neither made nor adapted to cause injury, it is an offensive weapon under section 1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 only if the person having it intends it to be used to cause injury. A defendant’s lack of lawful authority or reasonable excuse cannot itself establish that necessary intent.

Where reasonable excuse is raised, jury directions must make clear that the prosecution must still prove the intent to cause injury beyond reasonable doubt. A direction that invites the jury to decide reasonable excuse first, without clearly restating that intent remains essential to conviction, may render the conviction unsafe.

The appellant was convicted at Isleworth Crown Court, by a majority of 11 to 1, of having an offensive weapon contrary to section 1(1) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953. During an argument in a shopping-centre car park, she took a small souvenir baseball bat from her car. The prosecution alleged that she intended to cause injury. The appellant said that she acted impulsively after threats and racist abuse, fearing for herself and her unborn child.

She appealed, with leave, against the Recorder’s directions on intent and reasonable excuse. The central issue was whether the directions allowed the jury to treat the appellant’s failure to establish a reasonable excuse as sufficient for conviction without first being sure that she intended the bat to be used to cause injury.

1. Appeal allowed; conviction quashed. The court could not conclude that the conviction was safe.
2. Under section 1(4) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953, the bat was not alleged to have been made or adapted for causing injury. It could therefore be an offensive weapon only if, when the appellant had it with her, she intended it to be used to cause injury. An intention merely to frighten another person, or to make that person think the article might be used, was insufficient.
3. The Recorder had directed the jury on the need for an intention to cause injury. However, he then told them to consider first whether the appellant had a reasonable excuse for taking the bat from the car, and placed on her the burden of proving that excuse on the balance of probabilities. He did not make clear that, even if she lacked a reasonable excuse, conviction still required the jury to be sure that she intended the bat to be used to cause injury.
4. There was a real risk that the jury treated failure to prove reasonable excuse as determinative. A careful analysis of the indictment and directions might have disclosed the separate intent requirement, but the court could not assume that the jury undertook that analysis.
5. Reasonable excuse was capable in principle of arising from the appellant’s account that she took the bat in self-defence. The defect in the summing-up was therefore material, and the court quashed the conviction.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal in [2011] EWCA Crim 985 and quashed the conviction.
• Isleworth Crown Court: Convicted the appellant, by a majority of 11 to 1, of possessing an offensive weapon contrary to section 1(1) of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953; a conditional discharge for two years was imposed.