R v Emmanuel Tamwesigire

Under Criminal Justice Act 2003, whether a witness is unfit to give evidence because of a mental condition is a matter for the trial judge's holistic assessment of the available evidence. Up-to-date medical material and credible evidence of the effect of court proceedings may suffice. An expert report directed specifically to fitness is not indispensable. An appellate court reviews whether that conclusion was open to the judge; it does not substitute its own assessment.

A sentence must be corrected where credit for time on licence recall has been given contrary to statute. A lawful correction is not unfair merely because it changes the sentencing landscape.

Following a jury trial at the Central Criminal Court, the appellant was convicted of the murder of Ricardo Fuller. The prosecution had been permitted to adduce the statement of Natalie Parris, a security worker who had witnessed events outside the nightclub, after the trial judge found her unfit to give evidence because of her mental condition.

The appellant appealed against conviction, contending that her statement was inadmissible hearsay. He also renewed his application for leave to appeal his life sentence and revised minimum term of 24 years, less 12 days served on remand. The sentence had been corrected at a slip-rule hearing because most time in custody had been spent following recall on licence rather than on remand.

The central issues were whether the judge had been entitled to find the witness unfit, and whether the corrected minimum term was wrong in principle, unfair, or manifestly excessive.

1. The appeal against conviction was dismissed and the renewed application for leave to appeal sentence was refused.
2. Under section 116(2)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, fitness to give evidence was for the trial judge to decide on all the evidence. The appellate court's task was to decide whether the conclusion was open to that judge, not to substitute its own view. The evidence supported the conclusion, reached with the requisite certainty, that Ms Parris was unfit by reason of her mental condition. Her established mental-health difficulties were aggravated by engagement with the trial, and a hearing would be physically and psychologically damaging and affect her capacity to give evidence. No psychiatric report focused specifically on fitness was required. The available medical evidence, her own accounts and the police evidence were sufficient, and there was no reason to doubt her genuineness.
3. The court also observed that the prosecution case was strong independently of Ms Parris's evidence, including CCTV and other witness evidence.
4. On sentence, the judge had been entitled to treat the case as one in which the appellant knowingly took a knife to the scene for the purposes of paragraph 4 of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act 2020. The short duration of the episode did not require a discrete reduction. The judge had properly balanced the relevant mitigation against substantial aggravating features.
5. The original allowance of 851 days' credit was unlawful. By section 322(1)(b) of the Sentencing Act 2020, time spent on recall on licence could not count towards the minimum term of a life sentence. Once the error emerged, the judge was bound to correct it. The revised 24-year minimum term, less 12 days actually spent on remand, involved no double counting, unfairness, or manifest excess.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed the appeal against conviction and refused the renewed application for leave to appeal sentence.
• Central Criminal Court: the appellant was convicted of murder on 1 November 2023. A life sentence was imposed. At a slip-rule hearing on 22 November 2023, the minimum term was corrected to 24 years, less 12 days on remand, to comply with the Sentencing Act 2020.