Notable Cases

R v Robert McCarry
25.01.2008
The prosecution of Robert McCarry and Paul Waters; jointly convicted of the rape and murder of Nicola West. The 34-year-old's body was found in the boot of a car parked outside Ipswich police station. A post-mortem examination found Miss West died from strangulation. McCarry and Waters drove for two days with the victim's body in the boot before handing themselves in at Ipswich police station. The defendants were also found guilty of perverting the course of justice. McCarry was sentenced to a 19-year minimum term while Waters was told he would serve at least 13 years in prison.

R v Sweeney
04.12.2007
Anthony Sweeney was sentenced to life for the murder of his wife committed while on day-release from prison. Sweeney stabbed his wife 40 times with a carving knife at their home. Sweeney was serving a three-year jail term in Stanford Hill Prison on the Isle of Sheppey after being convicted of obtaining goods and services by deception. The open prison assessed Sweeney as low risk. He had been allowed out of jail unaccompanied to have hospital treatment for a minor injury.

R v Watkins and ors
22.04.2007
A case concerning a fraudulent stock-broking firm operating from a private house in Essex. The three defendants posed as brokers, claiming to represent a non-existent firm call Gilberts. Bruce Watkins of Basildon, his son-in-law, Steven Crump, from Pitsea, and Rolan Antony, a British businessman living in Barcelona were convicted of conspiracy to defraud. They sold shares at £3.50 each in one company called Virtual Vineyards. The court heard how their sales drive started to attract investors before the registering of the firm with Companies House. Investors handed over cheques for thousands of pounds and were given contract notes from Gilberts, certifying they had bought shares that did not exist. Even after they registered the company it was an empty shell with no profits and no real business to match the claims made to investors. Crump was jailed for 21 months, Antony was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, and Watkins to 19 months in jail, suspended for two years. Crump and Watkins were ordered to repay more than £74,000 to the fraud victims.

R v Michael Griffin & Constructional & Vehicle Welders Ltd
05.02.2007
A corporate manslaughter trial in which an employee was killed in a tanker explosion. Derek Thorburn was killed in an explosion while he was welding a petrol tanker at an industrial unit. The explosion caused the asbestos roof of a warehouse to collapse. Michael Griffin, managing director of Constructional & Vehicle Welders Ltd was acquitted of manslaughter. However, Constructional Vehicle Welders Ltd was fined £5,000, with £20,000 costs, for breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Michael Griffin was fined £10,000 for breaching Section 37(1) of the Act.

R v Youell & Youell
08.06.2006
This case concerned a major building industry fraud involving two companies, Alfred A Saxon Ltd and Logidox Ltd, which went into liquidation. An Essex couple undertook building work for the general public in the Harlow area placing advertisements in numerous trade names. The proceeds from the work were banked in various accounts using false identities and family members' names. The income they earnt was not declared to the Inland Revenue and the couple stole in excess of around £500,000 over a six-year period. Mark Youell and Amanda Youell  were convicted of tax evasion offences and conspiracy to make false accounts.

R v Doherty
16.11.2005
The high profile murder and historic rape trial in which the defendant was found guilty by DNA evidence obtained 27 years after raping and murdering Norah Trott who was 63 years old at the time. A weak DNA probability match linked the defendant to clothing found during a murder investigation in a cold case review.

Doherty was ordered to serve at least 23 years in prison before being considered for release. He was also given a 10-year concurrent sentence for rape. The murder of Mrs Trott was a very high profile case at the time. On November 6, 1978, the victim shopkeeper from Southend-on-Sea left her home to visit a friend. Her body was later found dumped on an overgrown path nearby, her clothes were found in the boot of her car. She had been brutally raped, suffered serious head injuries and had died of asphyxia. A large scale police investigation was carried out and semen was detected at the crime scene but no offender was identified. Then in 2003 Essex police selected this case to undergo a cold case review. Scientists at the FSS located the original semen samples and were able to obtain a DNA profile, thanks to advances in DNA. The profile was loaded to the National DNA Database and initially there was no match. A few months later the defendant’s DNA profile was loaded to the National DNA Database after he was arrested for drink driving. His profile matched with the profile from the crime scene and he was arrested and charged.

R v Loizou
06.06.2005, [2005] EWCA Crim 1579, The Times 23rd June 2005
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
The four appellants brought an interlocutory appeal under the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 s. 35(1) against the judge's ruling that the prosecution was entitled to prove that a sum of cash had become "criminal property" within the meaning of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 s. 340 by a transfer in which they had allegedly been involved. The prosecution had alleged that the appellants were parties to a conspiracy to evade duty on imported cigarettes and that all four of them had been parties to a transfer of cash amounting to GBP 87,010. An issue arose as to what was meant by "criminal property" in s. 340 of the 2002 Act, and the appellants invited the judge to resolve the issue in a preparatory hearing held under s. 29 of the 1996 Act. At the hearing, the judge accepted the prosecution's submission that it was entitled to prove that the cash became criminal property when it was transferred. The appellants argued that the judge had been wrong. On appeal, a further issue arose as to whether the Court of Appeal had jurisdiction to determine the appeals.

It was held that (1) there was no material on which the judge could properly have concluded that the case fell within s. 29(1) of the 1996 Act; the court did not therefore have jurisdiction to entertain the appeals, R. v Singh (Mark) [2005] EWCA Crim 90 and Attorney General's Reference (No.1 of 2004) [2004] EWCA Crim 1025 applied. (2) However, it would be appropriate to express a view on the appellants' submissions. The natural meaning of s. 327(1) of the 2002 Act was that the property concealed, disguised, converted or transferred had to be criminal property at the time that it was concealed, disguised, converted or transferred, so that, in a case of transfer, the offence of transferring criminal property would not be committed if the property was not criminal property at the time of the transfer. It could not be said that property acquired legitimately would become criminal property within s. 340 of the 2002 Act, if a person formed a purpose or intention to use it for criminal purposes. It would be appropriate to declare that if the court had had jurisdiction to hear the appeals, they would have been allowed. The judge's ruling should be treated as a ruling under s. 40(1)(b) of the 1996 Act, and the judge might want to consider exercising his power under s. 40(4) to discharge or vary his ruling.

R v Last and Ors
27.01.2005, The Times, 31 January 2005; [2005] EWCA Crim 106; [2005] Crim L R 407
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
Guidelines issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council as to the effect of a guilty plea on the minimum term to be imposed on a defendant sentenced to life imprisonment for murder should be applied (upon appeal) to sentences passed before the guidelines came into force, (January 10, 2005) except in the unlikely circumstances that such a course would cause a defendant prejudice. The guideline was merely that, and did not alter the courts' statutory sentencing powers. A judge could still apply his discretion and calculate the minimum term otherwise than suggested in the guideline, as long as he gave express reasons in court for so doing.

R v Abi Ayed
22.05.2004
Central Criminal Court
This case narrowed the ambit of section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 concerning documents found in the defendants’ possession which were chemical formulae and technical drawings. Jacques Karim Abi-Ayed was accused of having documents "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit terrorist acts." Using ECHR authorities on "necessity" it was demonstrated that the legislation had to be formulated with sufficient precision to be foreseeable in its consequences, unless there were "particularly compelling reasons" to justify the interference with a right to print information from the internet.

R v Taylor
13.09.2003
The Times, 8 October 2003 [2003] EWCA Crim 2447
Court of Appeal, Criminal Division
The appellant's conviction for the murder of her allegedly violent husband was upheld. The judge had set out the elements of provocation sufficiently clearly and had identified the relevant evidence. Julie Taylor was given a life sentence for killing her husband Tony Honisett. Mrs Taylor had a low IQ, suffered from depression and claimed that her husband had subjected her to violence. At the trial the defences of accident, self defence, diminished responsibility and provocation were raised. The defence argued that the trial judge had not given a clear direction on provocation in that he had failed to leave the right questions to the jury and failed to identify what it was that may have triggered the defendant’s loss of self control. It was held that the judge had set out the elements of provocation sufficiently clearly and had identified the relevant evidence. Taking the totality of the defences together, provocation had been less important than the main issue of diminished responsibility and the judge could not be faulted for only mentioning it at one point in the summing up.

R v Gunfield and Postill
19.10.2001
This was a large scale inquiry into numerous deaths at a care home said to have been caused by inappropriate feeding methods. There were legal issues on the manslaughter charges and causation, joint enterprise and negligence. The court heard evidence of Angela Postill's 'obsession' with ensuring residents drank plenty of tea and other liquids. Care staff at Carnarvon Lodge Residential Care Home in Clacton were told to "push fluids" if residents were not drinking enough. Postill was originally charged with murder, which was later reduced to manslaughter.

R v Loveridge and ors
11.04.2001
[2001] EWCA Crim 1034; The Times, 3 May 2001; [2001]
The appellant's convictions were upheld despite the police having unlawfully videotaped them at court and adduced the evidence of a facial mapping expert to compare that video with CCTV footage.

R v Dr Kawa
05.07.2000
A doctor was charged with involuntary manslaughter of one of his patients by negligently issuing prescriptions of methadone for heroin addiction. The charges followed the death of 17-year-old Dean James in September 1997. There were difficult legal issues over the duty of care, health and safety matters, and expert evidence was called on both sides to prove the breach of duty.