R v Mohammed Riasat Malik

An appellate court assesses an alleged misdirection by asking whether it could conceivably affect the safety of the conviction in the light of the totality of the evidence. A trial judge should not introduce a factual possibility that forms no part of the prosecution case. However, an unhelpful observation will not make a conviction unsafe where the jury were properly directed to assess the evidence critically and independently, and the remaining evidence provides a proper basis for the verdict.

Following a trial in the Crown Court at Bradford, Mohammed Riasat Malik was convicted of unlawful wounding and of having an offensive weapon in a public place. The prosecution case was that he stabbed Raza Ali during a street confrontation.

Malik renewed, after refusal by the single judge, his application for leave to appeal against conviction. He contended that the summing up improperly invited the jury to speculate about a receipt for a watch and about the possibility that he had used and discarded a knife other than the knife found in his flat. The central issue was whether either aspect of the summing up rendered the convictions unsafe.

1. The court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction. The convictions were safe.

2. The trial judge had not invited speculation when addressing the Cash Converters receipt. The judge identified logical alternatives arising from the evidence: the receipt might concern a different watch, or it might bear on the truthfulness of the competing accounts. That was a proper direction on how the jury could assess the evidence.

3. The judge’s reference to the possible use and disposal of another knife was not helpful. That possibility did not form part of the prosecution case. Nevertheless, it could not conceivably affect the safety of the convictions. The jury had been told that the assessment of the evidence was for them, that they could disagree with the judge’s observations, and that they should examine the evidence critically.

4. Viewed as a whole, the evidence entitled the jury to find that Malik had stabbed Ali. It included Ali’s direct evidence, Ali’s immediate identification of Malik after the stabbing, and Malik’s failure in interview to mention matters later relied upon at trial. The jury could therefore properly find both that Malik unlawfully wounded Ali and that he possessed a knife in the street for that purpose.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — by judgment dated 7 March 2024, [2024] EWCA Crim 292, refused the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction after the single judge had refused leave.
• Crown Court at Bradford — on 23 January 2023, convicted Malik of unlawful wounding and having an offensive weapon in a public place, imposing concurrent sentences of three years’ and two years’ imprisonment.