R v Linton Bloomfield

A complaint about late service does not justify an adjournment where the material was already available by other means and the defendant suffered no prejudice, including where the defendant acts in person.

The loss or absence of potentially relevant footage does not render a prosecution an abuse of process where the prosecution took appropriate steps to establish whether the material existed. Fresh evidence on a criminal appeal must be properly presented and identify material additional evidence; bare assertions of what witnesses might say do not meet the requirements of Criminal Appeal Act 1968, section 23.

The applicant was convicted at the Inner London Crown Court of causing serious injury by dangerous driving after a jury trial. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

Having been refused leave by a single judge, he renewed his application for leave to appeal against conviction. He alleged unfairness arising from late-served material, the unavailability of dashcam footage, and the refusal to adjourn the trial. He also sought to adduce fresh evidence concerning the road layout, the missing footage and the trial process.

1. The court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction and the applications to adduce fresh evidence. The proposed grounds were wholly unarguable.
2. The trial judges’ decisions not to adjourn could not be criticised. Although a trial bundle had been sent to an old address, its contents had already been provided to the applicant by other means about ten weeks before trial. The only later material was a short witness statement which the prosecution had attempted to serve on him. The applicant suffered no prejudice, notwithstanding that he represented himself.
3. There was no arguable abuse of process arising from the absence of dashcam footage. The prosecution had made appropriate inquiries into available CCTV and dashcam material. The witness had reported that the relevant dashcam footage had not been recorded or had been deleted. On either account, there was no failure by the prosecution capable of justifying a stay.
4. The proposed fresh evidence did not satisfy section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. The applications contained unsupported assertions rather than witness statements or proper details of additional evidence. The material attributed to one proposed witness was also inadmissible and irrelevant to the conduct of the trial.
5. The court agreed with the single judge’s detailed reasons for refusing leave. It made no loss of time order.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): By [2024] EWCA Crim 210, the court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction and refused applications to adduce fresh evidence.
• Inner London Crown Court: The applicant was convicted by a jury on 1 June 2023 of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was sentenced on 8 December 2023 to four years’ imprisonment.
• Single judge: Leave to appeal against conviction was refused before the renewed application to the full court.