Burke, R v

On an appeal against conviction, the governing question in England and Wales is whether the relevant material causes the Court of Appeal to doubt the safety of the verdict. An asserted inconsistency between authorities does not require a different result where their approaches can be reconciled. Applying that test, the court remained entirely satisfied that the convictions were safe.

The respondent was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court on 6 July 2006, before His Honour Judge Mark Brown and a jury, of two counts of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

On 20 October 2016 the Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal in an unreserved judgment. Authorities subsequently drawn to the court’s attention had not been cited at the hearing, so the court invited written submissions. The issue was whether those authorities required it to revise its conclusion that the convictions were safe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court saw no reason to revise its earlier conclusion that it was entirely satisfied that the convictions were safe.

2. The court had followed the approach stated by Hughes LJ in Mushtaq Ahmed v The Queen [2010] EWCA Crim 2899. Having considered the later written submissions, it held that this approach was not inconsistent with those in McInnes v HM Advocate [2010] UKSC 7 and R v Kelly [2015] EWCA Crim 500.

3. The court adopted the reasoning on that point given by a differently constituted court in R v Garland [2016] EWCA Crim 1743. In any event, it emphasised that it had to apply the law of England and Wales. The applicable test was whether the relevant material caused the court to doubt the safety of the verdict. It did not.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against conviction, maintaining the conclusion reached in its unreserved judgment of 20 October 2016.
• Liverpool Crown Court: convicted the respondent on 6 July 2006 of two counts of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.