R v Glenn Ansell

A very lengthy delay in seeking leave to appeal requires a proper basis for extending time. Mental health difficulties will not, without more, establish that a conviction is unsafe or that the trial was procedurally unfair where those difficulties were known to the legal team and the court. The absence of a diminished-responsibility defence, considered against the psychiatric evidence available at trial, may be relevant to whether any present challenge has substance. A later transfer between prison and secure hospital does not itself demonstrate an error in the trial or sentencing process. Where a jury has convicted a defendant of murder, the sentencing judge’s lawful sentencing option is life imprisonment.

The applicant was convicted of murder at Nottingham Crown Court in 2002. More than 21 years later, he renewed an application for leave to appeal against conviction and sought an extension of approximately 7,890 days. His grounds alleged that his legal team and the trial court had failed to investigate or take proper account of mental health problems, including a later diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder.

The applications followed an earlier refusal of leave to appeal against sentence, reported as [2023] EWCA Crim 1529. That judgment considered psychiatric reports prepared before the trial and recorded that diminished responsibility had not been advanced. The central issue was whether the psychiatric material disclosed a proper basis to extend time or to challenge the safety or procedural fairness of the murder conviction.

1. Applications refused. The court refused both the application for an extension of approximately 7,890 days and the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction.
2. The applicant’s mental health problems were well known at the time of trial. The court had considered the same psychiatric evidence addressed in the earlier sentencing judgment, including reports referring to personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and claustrophobia. Some of that evidence stated that the mental health problems had no bearing on the offending.
3. The absence of a diminished-responsibility defence was not surprising in light of the evidence. The sentencing judge had referred to the psychiatric reports and described the applicant as having a troubled history, but had concluded that the killing was a drug-fuelled attack. That reasoning was inconsistent with a suggestion that responsibility was diminished.
4. The court agreed with the single judge that there was nothing to suggest that the conviction was unsafe or that the procedure by which the verdict was reached was procedurally unfair. A later diagnosis, or a later period spent in a psychiatric hospital rather than prison, did not establish an appealable error.
5. The court also relied on the reasoning in the sentencing judgment that, following a jury conviction for murder, the judge’s only lawful sentencing option was life imprisonment. The subsequent treatment of the applicant in hospital therefore did not indicate that the original trial or sentencing process was defective.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): In the earlier sentence-related proceedings, leave to appeal and an extension of time were refused: [2023] EWCA Crim 1529.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): The renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction and the application for an extension of time were refused: [2024] EWCA Crim 1669.