Director of Public Prosecutions v Young

On a submission of no case to answer, the question is whether, taking the prosecution evidence at its highest, a reasonable tribunal properly directed could properly convict. No bright line exists between audio and video recordings. An audio recording may therefore provide sufficient evidence of an assault, even where the complainant does not give evidence and there are no visible injuries. The evidence must be assessed as a whole, and the threshold question is distinct from whether conviction would ultimately follow.

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed by way of Case Stated against Sunderland Magistrates’ Court’s dismissal of a charge of assaulting by beating. The complainant did not attend the trial, and the justices refused an application to admit her accounts to the police as hearsay. The prosecution relied on a 999 call, body-worn camera footage and other evidence. The issues were whether the recordings formed part of the Case Stated and whether the remaining evidence was sufficient to require the case to proceed.

1. Appeal allowed. The justices’ decision dismissing the charge was quashed, and the case was directed to be listed for a fresh trial before a differently constituted bench.
2. Applying Director of Public Prosecutions v Jobling [2016] EWHC 2707 (Admin), the recordings exhibited to the Case Stated properly formed part of it and could be considered by the appellate court.
3. The governing question on a submission of no case to answer was whether the evidence, taken at its highest, was such that on one view of it a reasonable bench, properly directed, could properly convict. Whether the bench would in fact convict after hearing all the evidence was a separate issue.
4. No bright line could be drawn between audio and video recordings. The 999 call, considered with the surrounding evidence, could enable a properly directed bench to find that an assault was taking place. The recording contained the complainant’s call for police assistance, cries of pain and sounds of physical exertion, while the overlap with the body-worn footage identified the respondent as the man present at the scene.
5. It was therefore not properly open to the justices to uphold the submission of no case to answer. The absence of the complainant’s live evidence and visible injuries did not make the prosecution evidence incapable of supporting a conviction.

• High Court (Administrative Court) allowed the DPP’s appeal by way of Case Stated, answered the second question in the negative, quashed the dismissal and directed a fresh trial before a differently constituted bench.
• Sunderland Magistrates’ Court allowed the submission of no case to answer and dismissed the charge on 10 April 2018.