Vohra v R.

On an appeal based on alleged non-disclosure, the decisive question is whether the additional material causes the appellate court to doubt the safety of the conviction, having regard to the impact it might have had on the jury. Material does not establish a disclosure breach merely because it later becomes relevant in proceedings against another defendant. Its relevance must be assessed in the context of the original trial.

A later decision by the Crown not to proceed against co-accused persons does not itself render an earlier conviction unsafe. The court must determine whether the material could genuinely have tested the evidence relevant to that appellant’s trial.

The applicant pleaded guilty at Maidstone Crown Court to conspiracy to evade the prohibition on importing amphetamine. He was later convicted by a jury of the corresponding cocaine conspiracy and received concurrent sentences totalling 12 years’ imprisonment.

At a later retrial of other alleged conspirators, material concerning an undercover officer’s meeting with another defendant a year before the applicant’s involvement was ordered to be disclosed. The Crown then elected not to proceed against certain defendants. The applicant appealed his cocaine conviction, contending that the earlier non-disclosure undermined the officer’s credibility and made his conviction unsafe.

The central issue was whether the newly disclosed material, and the later course of the co-accused proceedings, created doubt about the safety of the applicant’s conviction.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court held that the conviction for the cocaine conspiracy was safe.

2. There had been no breach of the Crown’s disclosure obligations. At the disclosure stage, the material concerning the meeting involving Lee in April 2012 had no apparent relevance to the applicant’s trial. It concerned different people and events a year before the applicant’s alleged involvement. Its potential relevance in Lee’s later case emerged only through cross-examination at that later trial.

3. Applying the approach in Garland [2016] EWCA Crim 1743, the court asked whether the additional material caused doubt about the safety of the conviction, in light of the impact it might have had on the jury. It did not. The jury had all material truly relevant to the issues at the applicant’s trial, and the undercover officer’s credibility had been properly tested in cross-examination.

4. The material relating to Lee could not genuinely have been used to test the officer’s evidence against the applicant. Nor did the Crown’s later decision not to proceed against other defendants create unfairness or affect the safety of this conviction. The court could not assess the evidence or defences in the retrial, and any benefit obtained by Machin from the disclosure ruling did not bear on the applicant’s conviction.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The applicant’s appeal against his cocaine-conspiracy conviction was dismissed: [2016] EWCA Crim 1898.

• Crown Court at Maidstone: The applicant pleaded guilty to the amphetamine-conspiracy count on 23 October 2013. On 11 November 2013, a jury convicted him of the cocaine-conspiracy count. On 3 July 2015, he received concurrent sentences totalling 12 years’ imprisonment.