Stokes v Regina

The false-impression gateway for bad-character evidence under section 101(1)(f) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 is not engaged unless the accused’s evidence truly conveys a false impression. Evidence merely explaining how a cannabis-growing venture arose did not suggest an absence of any previous involvement with drugs. Old convictions for personal possession did not correct the alleged impression.

A wrongful admission of bad-character evidence, and errors in a factual summing-up, do not make a conviction unsafe where they are minor in the context of a strong prosecution case and do not undermine the verdict’s safety.

The appellant pleaded guilty to producing cannabis at premises in Coventry. He was convicted after trial at the Crown Court at Warwick of a further offence of producing cannabis at Whitehouse Farm, where police found an underground cannabis factory containing 257 plants. He was acquitted of possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

At trial, the judge admitted two convictions from 2002 for possession of small amounts of heroin and crack cocaine. The prosecution contended that the appellant’s evidence had falsely portrayed him as naïve about drugs. The appellant appealed against conviction on the admission and direction concerning that evidence, and on errors in the factual summing-up. He also pursued an adjourned application for permission to appeal his seven-year sentence.

1. The court dismissed the conviction appeal. It held that the appellant’s old drug convictions should not have been admitted under section 101(1)(f) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. His evidence was an account of how the cannabis nursery at Amy Close came about. It did not convey a false impression that he had never been involved with drugs. In any event, convictions from 12 years earlier, when he was 17, for personal possession of two small wraps of class A drugs could not displace the supposed impression.

2. The resulting direction was consequently founded on wrongly admitted evidence. The court nevertheless held that the conviction was safe. The convictions formed only a minor part of a strong case: the appellant admitted growing cannabis seedlings, had repeatedly attended the farm, possessed keys giving access to the unit, and was arrested after spending four hours at the site with cultivation equipment and substantial cash in his vehicle. His acquittal on the cocaine count also indicated that the jury had not treated the old convictions as proof of guilt.

3. The judge had also misstated aspects of the evidence concerning clothing in the vehicle and the time needed to move tyres concealing the underground factory. Those errors did not undermine the conviction’s safety. The defence had made the point about the tyres forcefully, the point was not raised for correction at the time, and the brevity of the earlier visits was only one matter in the overall evidential case.

4. The court granted permission to appeal sentence and allowed the appeal to a limited extent. A leading role and a category 2 cannabis-production operation were open findings, but the circumstances did not require a sentence near the top of the guideline range. The seven-year sentence was quashed and replaced with six years’ imprisonment. All other orders remained unchanged.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The conviction appeal was dismissed. Permission to appeal sentence was granted and the sentence was reduced from seven years to six years’ imprisonment.
• Crown Court at Warwick: The appellant pleaded guilty to one offence of producing cannabis and was convicted after trial of a further such offence. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment on the trial count, with no separate penalty on the guilty-plea count.