R v Samuel Kayode

A finding that a defendant is unfit to plead requires written or oral evidence from at least two registered medical practitioners, at least one of whom is duly approved. Where the only psychiatric report does not support unfitness, and the remaining records provide no evidential basis for the claim, the court may properly refuse a fresh expert report. Generalised lay concerns about psychiatric wellbeing, without evidence addressing fitness to plead at the relevant time, are insufficient. An unarguable fitness-to-plead ground cannot justify extending time or granting permission to appeal against conviction.

The applicant pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Cambridge to five drug and criminal-property offences and received a total sentence of 30 months’ imprisonment. A separate application concerning sentence had already been refused and was not renewed. He subsequently sought permission to appeal against conviction out of time by 1,078 days, alleging that he had been unfit to plead when he entered his guilty pleas. The renewed application concerned whether the medical, prison and lay evidence provided an arguable basis for that contention and for obtaining a further expert report.

Application refused. The renewed application for permission to appeal against conviction and the application for an extension of time were both refused. Extending time would have been futile because the proposed appeal was unarguable. The convictions were safe.

1. The applicant’s complaints about his treatment in prison could not affect the safety of the convictions. The only potentially material ground was the assertion that he had been unfit to plead.
2. The guilty pleas were unequivocal and were entered when the applicant was represented by counsel. No concern about fitness to plead was raised at the time. The surrounding evidence pointed in the opposite direction: the applicant’s interviews, mitigation letter and pre-sentence report showed that he understood his conduct and could explain it. The report contained no suggestion that he was seriously mentally unwell or unfit to plead.
3. Under section 4(6) of the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964, a finding of unfitness to plead could be made only on written or oral evidence from two or more registered medical practitioners, at least one of whom was duly approved. The only psychiatric report before the court expressly did not support the applicant’s claim. His medical, hospital and prison records contained nothing suggesting that he had been unfit to enter his pleas.
4. The court therefore declined to order a fresh expert report because there was no proper evidential basis for doing so. A witness statement from a fellow prisoner was considered, despite the absence of a proper application to adduce it, but it contained only generalised lay concerns about the applicant’s mental health and did not address fitness to plead at the relevant time. It fell far short of evidence capable of establishing unfitness.
5. The proposed ground was unarguable and no other arguable ground appeared from the papers. Permission to appeal and an extension of time were refused.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Renewed application for permission to appeal against conviction, together with an application for an extension of time of 1,078 days, refused.
• Crown Court at Cambridge: The applicant pleaded guilty to five offences and was sentenced to a total term of 30 months’ imprisonment.