Stevens, R. v

Evidence of another person’s conviction may be admitted under Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 section 74 where proof that person committed the offence is relevant and otherwise admissible. The court must identify the purpose and factual extent of the evidence sought to be proved.

Under section 78, the decisive question is whether the conviction would unfairly close off an issue for the jury. In a joint-enterprise case, convictions of other participants will ordinarily be fair where the jury must still decide the present defendant’s individual acts and intention. Sentencing a young adult requires proper weight to early adulthood and avoids a mechanistic application of age-based starting points.

The appellant was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of murder arising from a coordinated pursuit in which another participant stabbed the deceased. Three other participants had already been convicted of murder. At the appellant’s trial, their convictions were admitted under section 74 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

He appealed against conviction, contending that the convictions were irrelevant or should have been excluded under section 78, particularly the conviction of a participant whose conduct was said to resemble his own. He also challenged his life sentence with a 23-year minimum term as excessive given his age and the minimum terms imposed on the other offenders.

The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The appeal against sentence was allowed to the limited extent of reducing the minimum term from 23 years to 21 years.

1. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 section 74(1) applies only where evidence that another person committed an offence is relevant and otherwise admissible. It provides a means of proving that person’s offending through the conviction, without preventing the prosecution from adducing further evidence. The court must analyse both the purpose for which the conviction is tendered and the facts sought to be established, including through section 75.
2. The court followed the approach in R v S [2007] EWCA Crim. 2105. Under section 78, the material question is whether the other person’s conviction imports the defendant’s complicity so that the other person could not, or scarcely could, be guilty unless the defendant were also guilty. That is a fact-sensitive assessment and an exercise of judgment rather than pure discretion.
3. The convictions were relevant to prove that the other pursuers had participated in murder with the requisite intent. They did not prove that the appellant assisted or encouraged the attack, or that he had the necessary intention. The jury retained a distinct and live task of assessing his individual conduct and state of mind. The case was therefore unlike the closed conspiracy in R v O'Connor (1987) 85 Cr.App.R 298, and the convictions did not unfairly close off his defence. Excluding the conviction of one participant would also have been unfair to the prosecution.
4. On sentence, the appellant’s leading and organising role was a serious aggravating feature. However, the judge gave insufficient weight to his age of 18 years and two months. The statutory starting points for offenders immediately below and above 18 must not be applied mechanistically. His role did not justify a minimum term exceeding that imposed on the older participant, Zambon. The life sentence was therefore retained, but the minimum term was substituted with one of 21 years.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Dismissed the appeal against conviction and allowed the sentence appeal to the extent of substituting a 21-year minimum term for the 23-year term. [2020] EWCA Crim 280
• Central Criminal Court On 13 March 2019, convicted the appellant of murder and sentenced him to custody for life with a minimum term of 23 years, less time on remand.