Alden v Director of Public Prosecutions

A case stated need not reproduce every evidential detail or procedural matter. The Administrative Court will require amendment only where the omission creates a material defect in the statement of the legal question or prevents proper consideration of the conviction under challenge.

Self-serving remarks in an interview or prepared statement are not evidence unless adopted by the defendant in evidence. Evidence given by a co-defendant may be relevant to another defendant’s case where the rules permit it, although it must not be treated as material to an earlier no-case submission if it had not then been given. The omission of an apparently separate acquittal from a case stated does not invalidate the statement where the evidence relevant to that charge was materially different from the evidence supporting the conviction under review.

The appellant was convicted in the Fareham Youth Court of aggravated domestic burglary contrary to Theft Act, section 10(1), following a contested trial with a co-defendant. He had also pleaded guilty to possessing an offensive weapon in a public place and received a Youth Rehabilitation Order after an unlawful custodial sentence was set aside.

The appellant applied to the Administrative Court for an order requiring the magistrates to amend their case stated. He alleged omissions concerning an asserted self-protective explanation for possessing a baseball bat, the short interval between leaving and returning to the scene, the co-defendant’s evidence, and an apparent charge under section 4 of POA 1986. The central issue was whether those matters rendered the case stated inadequate.

1. The application to remit the case stated for amendment was refused. The court considered the case stated as drawn, while addressing alleged defects identified in argument.

2. Self-serving remarks in an interview or prepared statement do not constitute evidence unless the defendant adopts them in evidence. The magistrates had nevertheless recorded evidence that the appellant claimed to have brought the baseball bat for protection, and the complaint on this ground failed.

3. The omission of the approximately five-minute interval between the appellant’s departure and return did not require amendment. On the recorded account, the interval was in any event very short and was not material to the issues raised.

4. It would have been an error to treat the co-defendant’s evidence as relevant to the magistrates’ rejection of the submission of no case to answer if that evidence had not yet been given. However, once the co-defendant gave evidence, it was potentially relevant to the case against the appellant as well as to the co-defendant’s case.

5. The ambiguity concerning whether the appellant had also been convicted under section 4 of POA 1986 did not make the case stated inadequate. The evidence relevant to that charge was narrower than the evidence supporting the aggravated burglary conviction. The magistrates could logically acquit on the former while convicting on the latter. The application was therefore refused.

High Court (Administrative Court): The appellant challenged the adequacy of a case stated by the Fareham Youth Court concerning his conviction for aggravated domestic burglary. The application to require amendment of the case stated was refused.