Campbell-Brown v Central Criminal Court & Anor

Before listing a criminal trial beyond a statutory custody time limit, the court must first address the statutory questions: whether there is good and sufficient cause for extension and whether the prosecution has acted with due diligence and expedition. Listing and custody-time-limit decisions must be considered together and in the correct sequence. The convenience of counsel is not automatically excluded from consideration, but it can justify an extension only after rigorous scrutiny and a balanced assessment of all relevant interests. The statutory test is not confined to unusual or exceptional circumstances. On judicial review, a reasoned decision which balances the competing considerations and reflects practical constraints will be difficult to challenge, applying a heightened Wednesbury standard where liberty is engaged.

The claimant, charged with murder and remanded in custody, challenged the decision of HHJ Wide QC at the Central Criminal Court to extend his custody time limit to 13 February 2015. His co-defendants’ preferred leading counsel were unavailable for an earlier fixture, and the trial had previously been listed for February by HHJ Morris QC without a decision being made under section 22(3) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

The claimant argued that the earlier listing decision had been made without considering the custody time limits, and that the later decision was procedurally flawed and irrational. The central issues were whether the two decisions were legally distinct, whether counsel’s convenience could constitute good and sufficient cause, and whether the later extension was lawful.

1. Application dismissed. The decision of HHJ Wide QC to extend the claimant’s custody time limit was not shown to be unlawful or irrational.
2. Under section 22(3) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, the court must be satisfied both that the need for extension is due to good and sufficient cause and that the prosecution has acted with all due diligence and expedition. The statutory questions must be addressed before, and not after, a trial date outside the custody time limit is fixed.
3. The listing decision and the custody-time-limit decision should be treated as indissoluble. HHJ Morris QC acted unlawfully by fixing the February trial without first deciding whether the time limit should be extended. He made a case-management decision, not a decision under section 22(3). That earlier decision could not itself be challenged in these proceedings.
4. The two decisions nevertheless remained legally distinct. The earlier procedural errors did not automatically infect HHJ Wide QC’s later decision. It was unsafe for HHJ Wide QC to assume that HHJ Morris QC had already adjudicated under section 22(3), but that error did not determine the legality of the later decision.
5. The convenience of counsel is capable, in an appropriate case, of amounting to good and sufficient cause. No general rule can define when it will do so. Context is decisive. The court must investigate and balance matters such as the reasons for retaining existing counsel, the availability of alternatives, trial complexity, fairness to all defendants, and the claimant’s liberty interests.
6. In this case, HHJ Wide QC reasonably concluded that an earlier trial was not feasible or desirable, gave a reasoned judgment, and balanced the competing considerations. Applying the heightened Wednesbury standard applicable where liberty is engaged, his decision was not irrational or otherwise assailable.
7. The relevant guidance should be reconsidered. The statutory test is good and sufficient cause, not unusual or exceptional circumstances, and guidance should not state that counsel’s convenience can never satisfy that test.

The judgment records that permission for judicial review was initially refused on the papers, but was granted and the hearing expedited by Aikens LJ and Cranston J on 20 January 2015. The Divisional Court then dismissed the substantive judicial review claim.