Factual and Procedural Background
On 9 January 2024, following a trial in the Crown Court at Maidstone before Judge Wall and a jury, the Applicant, aged 34, was convicted of murder. The Applicant renewed an application for leave to appeal against conviction after a refusal by a single judge.
The Applicant and his wife lived with their two young sons and an adopted daughter. The wife had been hospitalised on 23 May 2020 and gave birth to the youngest son on 24 May. She was discharged and returned home on 25 May 2020.
On 27 May 2020, the adopted daughter suffered catastrophic injuries leading to her death. The timeline showed the Applicant recorded the children at 9:08 am and left the house with his son at 9:46 am to go to Tesco. CCTV confirmed their presence at Tesco between 10:07 am and 10:27 am. At 10:50 am, the Applicant called a friend to summon help for his daughter, who was unconscious and later taken to hospital where she died. Injuries included a fracture to the right side of the back of her head, earlier head injuries, and a fracture of the right humerus.
The central factual questions were whether the injuries were accidental and, if not, whether the Applicant or his wife caused them. The wife claimed the child fell down the stairs; the Applicant said he found the child already injured.
The prosecution alleged the Applicant caused the injuries deliberately, relying on previous injuries to the child and the timing of an earlier skull fracture coinciding with periods when the wife was hospitalised and the children were in the Applicant’s sole care. Medical professionals could not exclude accidental injury.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the evidence about what the Applicant allegedly told doctors at the hospital regarding a telephone call from his wife was admissible.
- Whether evidence of the Applicant’s alleged propensity for domestic violence was admissible or should have been excluded as unfairly prejudicial.
- Whether the trial judge erred in his directions to the jury concerning the use of bad character evidence, specifically the omission of the words "or mainly" in relation to reliance on such evidence.
- Whether any of the above errors rendered the conviction unsafe, justifying leave to appeal.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- The trial judge erred in admitting evidence that the Applicant told doctors his wife had telephoned him while he was at Tesco, as this was based on unreliable interpretation and hearsay.
- The evidence of the Applicant’s alleged domestic violence propensity was inadmissible or should have been excluded under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) or section 103 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 due to its prejudicial effect.
- The judge’s summing up was flawed because it failed to instruct the jury that they could not rely on the bad character evidence "wholly or mainly," potentially misleading the jury.
Respondent's Arguments
The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the Respondent’s arguments beyond the prosecution’s case as outlined in the factual background and the trial judge’s rulings.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The court carefully reviewed the trial judge’s rulings on the admissibility of the contested evidence. Regarding the hospital evidence, the judge had initially excluded it due to concerns about reliability but later admitted it after new evidence showed the Applicant had directly told a doctor, in broken English, that his wife had telephoned him while he was at Tesco. The court found no arguable error in this decision, emphasizing that the jury could test the evidence through cross-examination.
Concerning the propensity evidence, the judge conducted a detailed and comprehensive analysis under section 114(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, weighing factors such as hearsay reliability, prejudice, and the interests of justice. The judge also considered exclusion under section 78 of PACE and concluded the evidence was admissible and not unfairly prejudicial. The appellate court found no arguable basis to challenge this ruling.
On the summing up, although the judge omitted the phrase "or mainly" when instructing the jury on how to treat bad character evidence, the court found the overall directions clear and comprehensive. The jury was properly guided on the limited use of such evidence and the necessity to consider all evidence fairly. There was no risk of the jury being misled.
None of the proposed grounds demonstrated any arguable error sufficient to render the conviction unsafe.
Holding and Implications
The court REFUSED the renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction.
This decision directly upholds the conviction of the Applicant. No new legal precedents were established, and the ruling confirms the trial judge’s discretion in evidential rulings and jury directions in complex criminal cases involving contested evidence and propensity issues.