Jones v R

Where undisclosed material materially undermines a central witness’s account, the appellate court must assess whether the jury’s overall view of that witness may have changed. A conviction is unsafe if the affected allegation was central to the prosecution case and cannot realistically be separated from the witness’s credibility on related allegations.

The possibility that other evidence might have supported conviction does not suffice. The question is whether the jury, with the material available, would nevertheless have convicted.

The appellant was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court of acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. The prosecution case depended mainly on Maria Vervoort’s evidence that he had threatened and induced her not to give evidence in a murder trial.

After the conviction, previously undisclosed surveillance material showed that the appellant could not have attended an alleged face-to-face meeting with Ms Vervoort on 1 June 2006 and cast substantial doubt on the alternative date of 2 June. Further information also showed that her trial explanation for the absence of supporting cell-site evidence was false.

The appellant sought a substantial extension of time and leave to appeal. The central issue was whether the new material rendered his conviction unsafe and, if so, whether a retrial should be ordered.

1. The appeal was allowed. The court granted the necessary extensions of time and leave to appeal, quashed the conviction, and declined to order a retrial.

2. The prosecution had failed to disclose material which excluded 1 June 2006 as the date of the alleged meeting and substantially weakened 2 June as the alternative. The court described that failure as a lamentable breach of the prosecutor’s disclosure obligations, applying R v H and Others [2004] UKHL 3, [2004] 2 AC 134.

3. The meeting was not peripheral. It was the only occasion on which Ms Vervoort alleged that the appellant had threatened her in person. If the jury had concluded that the meeting did not occur, that conclusion would have significantly affected its assessment of her credibility and of the other allegations of intimidation for which she attributed responsibility to him.

4. The court distinguished the conclusion in Dunn [2009] EWCA Crim 1371. In that murder appeal, Ms Vervoort’s underlying account had been supported by other evidence and her evidence of personal intimidation had not undermined the safety of the murder verdicts. In this case, the challenged meeting was central to both the charge and the witness’s credibility.

5. Although other evidence might possibly have been sufficient to convict, the court could not conclude that the jury would have reached that conclusion if it had received the undisclosed material. The verdict was therefore unsafe. Given the seriousness of the allegation, the lengthy procedural history, and the appellant’s release from the custodial part of his sentence, a retrial was not in the public interest.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) In [2014] EWCA Crim 1337, the court granted extensions of time and leave to appeal, allowed the appeal against conviction, quashed the conviction, and declined to order a retrial.
• Birmingham Crown Court Following trial before His Honour Judge Orme, the appellant was convicted on 23 August 2007 of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice.