Palmer, R. v

Whether social-media messages amount to other reprehensible behaviour is a fact-specific question. Messages which, in their context, are capable of being read as threats to stab may constitute bad-character evidence, subject to the jury’s ultimate assessment of their meaning.

Under section 101(1)(d) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, earlier messages expressing a possible wish to stab the deceased when angry may be relevant to the issue whether a fatal injury was accidental or deliberately inflicted. Their admission is not unfair where their probative value justifies it and the jury is directed to assess them in context, without allowing a few messages to overshadow the direct evidence.

The appellant was convicted at Preston Crown Court of murdering her partner by inflicting a fatal stab wound and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years. Her case was that she had thrown a knife towards the floor during an argument and that the death was accidental.

On her appeal against conviction, she challenged the admission of three Facebook-message exchanges in which she referred to stabbing the deceased. The central issue was whether the messages were bad-character evidence admissible to rebut the defence of accident and, if so, whether their admission or the jury direction rendered the conviction unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The conviction was safe.
2. The court held that the question whether the messages amounted to other reprehensible behaviour under section 112 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was fact-specific. In context, the messages were capable of being understood as threats to stab. If the jury so found, they constituted reprehensible conduct. The jury, rather than the judge, had to make the ultimate assessment of their meaning.
3. The court treated R v Fox [2009] EWCA Crim 653 and R v Osbourne [2007] EWCA Crim 481 as illustrations of the fact-sensitive character of that inquiry. Their different outcomes on their particular facts did not prevent these messages from being capable of amounting to reprehensible conduct.
4. The messages were potentially relevant to an important matter in issue under section 101(1)(d): whether the fatal injury was an accident, as the appellant contended, or resulted from her intentionally stabbing the deceased. The Crown did not rely on premeditation. Earlier expressions that she might stab him when stressed or angry could nevertheless assist the jury on the issue of accident and intent.
5. The trial judge was entitled to conclude that admission was not unfair. His direction correctly required the jury to assess the messages in context, give them appropriate weight, and avoid allowing the few violent messages to overshadow the direct physical evidence. The jury could not properly convict wholly or mainly on the basis of those messages.
6. The pathology evidence of a deep wound penetrating the heart, considered with the remaining evidence, supported the safety of the verdict. The court did not need to determine whether the messages were admissible under section 98.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — The appeal against conviction was dismissed: [2016] EWCA Crim 2237.
• Crown Court at Preston — On 19 February 2016, the appellant was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years.