Asiedu v R.

An unequivocal and voluntary plea of guilty is a formal admission of the facts constituting the offence and will ordinarily make the resulting conviction safe. A defendant cannot reopen such a plea merely because the Crown case appeared strong or evidence was later criticised.

Exceptions arise where an erroneous ruling of law left no arguable defence, or where a legal bar meant that the prosecution should never have proceeded. A failure to disclose material is a breach of duty but does not, without more, amount to an abuse of process requiring a stay. Its ordinary remedy is disclosure and measures to secure a fair trial. It will not render a guilty plea unsafe where the undisclosed material could not have affected the defendant’s voluntary admissions.

Asiedu v R. [2015] EWCA Crim 714 concerned a renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction after refusal by a single judge.

The applicant had been tried with others for offences arising from the 21 July 2005 attempted bomb attacks on London transport. The first jury did not reach a verdict in his case. At his retrial in November 2007, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life or serious property damage.

He contended that his conviction was unsafe because the Crown had failed to disclose internal forensic documents criticising parts of Dr Black’s scientific evidence. The central issues were whether the non-disclosure made the proceedings an abuse of process, whether it affected the validity of the guilty plea, and whether it could have affected the safety of the conviction.

1. Application refused. The applicant’s plea was an unambiguous and voluntary admission that he had agreed to participate in making bombs intended to endanger life. It therefore established his guilt and made the conviction safe.

2. A guilty plea normally prevents an appeal against conviction because it is a formal confession. Following R v Chalkley & Jeffries [1997] EWCA Crim 3416, the court distinguished an incorrect ruling of law which leaves an accused with no arguable defence from a ruling admitting damaging evidence. In the latter situation, the accused remains free to contest the case and, if convicted, appeal the ruling. A subsequent guilty plea normally forecloses that course.

3. A guilty plea does not invariably bar an appeal. The court accepted the confined exception where the prosecution was one which should never have been brought because a stay for abuse of process was required. The wider suggestion in R v Chalkley & Jeffries that a guilty plea would prevent an appeal even in that situation was obiter and went too far. The court followed the approach in Mullen [1999] 2 Cr App R 143, Togher [2000] EWCA Crim 111, and Early [2002] EWCA Crim 1904.

4. The undisclosed forensic documents were plainly disclosable and their non-disclosure was a clear breach of the Crown’s duty. It was not, however, an abuse of process. Non-disclosure ordinarily calls for disclosure and directions that preserve trial fairness, and sometimes a retrial; it does not itself make it offensive to justice to try the accused. The exceptional misconduct in Early, which concealed entrapment capable of founding a stay, was materially different.

5. The scientific evidence concerned the other defendants’ late hoax and re-dilution case. It did not bear on the applicant’s own intention, his purchase of large quantities of hydrogen peroxide, or his written admissions on the plea. The failure of disclosure could neither have caused his plea nor affected its voluntary and unequivocal character. The application for leave to appeal was therefore refused.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In Asiedu v R. [2015] EWCA Crim 714, the court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction.
• Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court: The first jury did not reach a verdict on the applicant. At a retrial in November 2007 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life or serious property damage.