Bullen v REGINA, England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), Judgment, Law, casemine.com

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Attorney(S)

Miss M McGowan QC & Miss L Oakley (instructed by Derek Hayward & Co, Chatham, Kent) for the Appellant
Mr J Higgs instructed by the Crown

Judges

MR JUSTICE TEARE
MR JUSTICE NELSON
LORD JUSTICE RIX

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Bullen v. REGINA

Smart Summary

Factual and Procedural Background

This appeal arises from the conviction of the Appellant at Crown Court for murder following a plea of guilty to manslaughter. The Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term. The issue at trial was whether the Appellant had the specific intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. The incident involved a drunken fight resulting in the death of the victim, caused by a stab wound from a broken beer bottle wielded by the Appellant. The Appellant did not give evidence but answered questions in interview, initially denying possession of the bottle and later admitting to using it. The prosecution sought to admit evidence of the Appellant's previous convictions for violent offences as bad character evidence, asserting a propensity for violence relevant to the murder charge. The trial judge admitted this evidence and directed the jury accordingly. The Appellant appealed against conviction, challenging the admissibility of the bad character evidence and the judge’s directions regarding the Appellant's lies in interview. The appeal was allowed and a retrial ordered.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether previous convictions for relatively low-level violent offences are admissible under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to prove the specific intent required for murder following a plea of guilty to manslaughter.
Whether the trial judge’s directions to the jury concerning the Appellant’s lies in interview were appropriate and sufficiently tailored to the circumstances.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

The sole issue at trial was specific intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm, not a general propensity for violence.
The Appellant’s previous convictions involved only offences of basic intent and could not illuminate the question of specific intent.
The trial judge failed to explain how the bad character evidence related to the issue of intent, and did not integrate it into the directions on intent.
The admission of bad character evidence was unfairly prejudicial and irrelevant under the statutory provisions, particularly sections 101(1)(d) and 103(1)(a) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
The judge’s directions on the Appellant’s lies did not present the realistic possibility that the lies were told to distance himself from the death while accepting guilt for manslaughter, which could be an innocent explanation regarding the murder charge.

Crown's Arguments

The bad character evidence was properly admitted and adequately explained to the jury.
The evidence was relevant not directly to specific intent as a legal element but to factual sub-issues such as who initiated the violence, why the Appellant was armed, and whether he continued to attack after the deceased ceased defending himself.
The previous convictions demonstrated a sustained propensity for violence, sometimes involving weapons and intoxication, which was relevant to these factual sub-issues and thus to the overall question of intent.
The judge correctly applied the three-part test from R v Hanson and properly directed the jury, including warnings not to convict solely or mainly based on bad character evidence.
The statutory language of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 deliberately permits admission of previous convictions for basic intent offences to establish propensity in trials for more serious offences of specific intent.
The lies told by the Appellant were consistent with a consciousness of guilt for murder, and the absence of his evidence meant the jury had no alternative explanation.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
R v Hanson [2005] 2 Cr App R 21	Three-part test for admissibility of bad character evidence: (1) propensity to commit offences of the kind charged, (2) whether propensity makes guilt more likely, (3) fairness of admission.	The judge applied the Hanson test but failed adequately to consider the limited issue of specific intent and the relevance of bad character evidence to that issue.
DPP v P [1991] 2 AC 447	Common law requirement of "striking similarity" for propensity evidence.	Distinguished as no longer strictly required under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
R v Duggan; R v Edwards [2006] 1 Cr App R 3	Relevance of previous convictions to establish propensity relevant to issues such as who was aggressor.	Found inapplicable to current appeal as those cases involved denial of any wrongdoing, unlike the present case.
R v Leaver [2006] EWCA 2988	Limits on the use of previous convictions where relevance to specific intent was lacking.	Used to illustrate the need for careful and focused application of bad character evidence when intent is the sole issue.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court identified that the trial judge erred in principle by admitting the bad character evidence without sufficiently examining its relevance to the sole issue at trial: the Appellant’s specific intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. The original notice to admit bad character evidence was predicated on a self-defence claim, which was abandoned after the plea to manslaughter. The Crown failed to reconsider the relevance of the previous convictions in light of this plea. The court emphasised that the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires bad character evidence to be relevant to an important matter in issue between the prosecution and defence. Here, the admitted facts meant that the only issue was specific intent, and the previous convictions, all for basic intent offences, did not illuminate that issue.

The court noted that the judge’s directions separated the bad character evidence from the issue of intent, failing to explain to the jury how the evidence should be considered in relation to specific intent. The judge’s reliance on the general concept of a propensity for violence was insufficient and potentially misleading, especially given the crucial distinction between offences of basic and specific intent. The court also rejected the Crown’s post hoc argument that the bad character evidence was relevant to factual sub-issues, as this was not advanced at trial or reflected in the judge’s directions.

Regarding the lies direction, the court found that the judge did not adequately present to the jury the possibility that the Appellant’s lies were motivated by a desire to distance himself from the death while accepting manslaughter guilt, which could be an innocent explanation in relation to the murder charge. The court considered that a tailored direction explaining this possibility would have been more appropriate than a formulaic standard direction.

Ultimately, the court concluded that the admission of bad character evidence was unfair and prejudicial, and the directions on lies were incomplete in this respect, warranting the allowance of the appeal and a retrial.

Holding and Implications

The court ALLOWED THE APPEAL and ordered a retrial.

The direct effect of this decision is to quash the Appellant’s conviction and require a new trial. The court did not establish new precedent beyond clarifying the application of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to cases where specific intent is the sole issue and previous convictions are for basic intent offences. No broader implications or changes to the law were articulated beyond this case-specific application.