R v Fortune Lawson & Anor

Separate trials under rule 3.29(4) of the Criminal Procedure Rules need not be ordered where offences form a sufficiently connected series and the evidence on each incident is cross-admissible. A case-management decision refusing severance will not ordinarily be disturbed without good reason.

A coincidence direction does not require a further warning that conviction cannot rest wholly or mainly on similarities. Although a jury should be warned against convicting wholly or mainly on omissions from a defence statement, an omitted warning will not render a conviction unsafe where the evidence is strong and other material supports guilt. The absence of an emotion warning is likewise assessed by its effect on safety.

Fortune Lawson sought extensions of time and leave to appeal convictions in the Crown Court at Cardiff for kidnapping, false imprisonment and blackmail arising from the Cardiff incident. His proposed grounds challenged the refusal to sever counts concerning an earlier London kidnapping and aspects of the jury directions.

Gideon Lawson sought an extension of time and leave to appeal his extended determinate sentence of 15 years, comprising 12 years’ custody and a three-year extended licence period. He alleged unjustified disparity with co-offenders and challenged the finding that he was dangerous.

The common issue was whether either proposed appeal was arguable on its merits.

1. The court dismissed both applications. It considered the short delays but focused on the merits. Fortune Lawson’s later letter admitting wrongdoing was a substantial obstacle to an assertion that his convictions were unsafe.

2. Under rule 3.29(4) of the Criminal Procedure Rules, the refusal to sever the London counts was unarguable as a ground of appeal. The two incidents had a sufficient nexus. The cross-admissibility direction, based on rebutting coincidence, demonstrated that the London evidence was admissible on the Cardiff counts. It did not matter that the direction was not also based on propensity. The judges’ conclusion that the joined trial was not unwieldy was a case-management decision, and there was no proper basis for appellate intervention. The jury’s failure to reach verdicts on the London counts supported the conclusion that it considered the counts separately.

3. The judge was not required, in a coincidence-based cross-admissibility direction, to warn the jury that it could not convict wholly or mainly on similarities between the incidents. The judge should have warned the jury not to convict Fortune Lawson wholly or mainly because of matters omitted from his defence statements. That oversight did not make the convictions unsafe, given the strength of the evidence and the admission in his letter. An emotion warning might properly have been given, but its absence also did not render the convictions unsafe.

4. Gideon Lawson’s sentence was neither manifestly excessive nor wrong in principle. The trial judge was entitled to assess his culpability within the level 2 group, and the alleged disparities did not give him a legitimate sense of grievance. The inaccuracies in the pre-sentence report were insufficient to undermine the dangerousness assessment, which the serious and organised gang offending supported.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) In [2025] EWCA Crim 198, the court dismissed Fortune Lawson’s renewed application for leave to appeal conviction and Gideon Lawson’s renewed application for leave to appeal sentence.
• Crown Court at Cardiff Fortune Lawson was convicted on 27 April 2023 on six Cardiff-incident counts and later pleaded guilty to two London-incident counts. Gideon Lawson was convicted on 26 June 2023 on the same six Cardiff-incident counts. On 27 October 2023, Gideon Lawson received an extended determinate sentence of 15 years.