R v Duncan Frederick Friend

A conviction founded on a guilty plea may still be challenged as unsafe. However, where the defendant deliberately and unambiguously admits facts constituting the offence by a voluntary plea in open court, the conviction will ordinarily be safe. A claim that the plea resulted from coercion, serious misadvice or other impropriety must have a credible evidential foundation. Contemporaneous records, the terms of a plea agreement, a signed basis of plea and other objective material may demonstrate that the plea was voluntary and informed.

The applicant sought a 124-day extension of time and renewed his application for leave to appeal against convictions entered following guilty pleas at the Crown Court at Maidstone. He had pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article and later to stalking involving serious alarm or distress. In return for the latter plea, the prosecution did not proceed with a more serious count of threatening a person with an offensive weapon in a public place.

He alleged that his legal representatives had seriously misadvised or blackmailed him into pleading guilty, and advanced general allegations of fabricated or concealed evidence. The central issue was whether there was an arguable basis for treating either guilty plea as involuntary and the resulting conviction as unsafe.

1. The renewed application for an extension of time and for leave to appeal against conviction was refused.

2. A guilty plea does not itself prevent the court from considering whether a conviction is unsafe. But an unambiguous, deliberate and voluntary guilty plea admitting facts constituting an offence will ordinarily make the conviction safe. The court applied the principle stated in Asiedu [2015] EWCA Crim 714.

3. There was no arguable basis for saying that the applicant’s pleas lacked those qualities. The evidence from the prosecution and his legal representatives, including contemporaneous records and communications between counsel, showed that the plea to stalking had been offered more than two months before trial in return for the prosecution not proceeding on count 2. The signed basis of plea and handwritten letter of remorse were inconsistent with the account now advanced.

4. The strength of the prosecution evidence also supported the conclusion that the plea arrangement was unsurprising. The allegation concerning the bladed article was captured on video, and the stalking allegation was supported by messages and telephone records. The applicant’s general allegations of fabricated statements, transcripts and concealed evidence lacked detail and evidential support. Matters concerning his family’s health did not bear on the voluntary and unambiguous character of his pleas.

5. Accordingly, the guilty pleas were not arguably unsafe and neither the extension nor leave to appeal was granted.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Refused the renewed application for an extension of time and leave to appeal against conviction: [2024] EWCA Crim 1630.

• Crown Court at Maidstone: The applicant pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article on 17 April 2023 and to stalking involving serious alarm or distress on 12 September 2023. He received 27 months’ imprisonment for stalking and 15 months’ imprisonment concurrently for the bladed-article offence, with a seven-year restraining order.