Page 411 - Magistrates Conference 2019

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Hearing dates: Tuesday 27 th January 2015

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Judgment

As Approved by the Court

Crown copyright©

Lady Justice Hallett DBE,

The Vice President of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division :

INTRODUCTION

1. These five otherwise unrelated appeals have been heard together because they each raise the same issue: namely
the extent and nature of the good character direction. This is becoming a significant problem for the Crown Court and
the Court of Appeal Criminal Division (the "CACD"). Hence this specially constituted five judge court.

2. Reporting restrictions apply to each of these appeals so that the complainants and child witnesses must not be
identified.

3. We shall address the development of the law relating to good character directions and reach some general
conclusions, before going on to apply those conclusions to each of the five appeals.

REVIEW OF CASE LAW AND STATUTORY DEVELOPMENTS

(a) Background

4. The law and practice in relation to character evidence has taken some dramatic turns during the twentieth and
twenty first centuries. It has long been recognised that defendants are permitted to adduce evidence of their good
character relevant to their propensity to offend. It was only when defendants became competent to give evidence,
pursuant to section 1 of the Criminal Evidence Act 1898, that evidence of good character was deemed also relevant to
credibility. Initially, the law went no further: the evidence was admissible but there was no obligation on the trial judge
to remind the jury of the evidence of good character let alone give the jury directions upon it. If the judge did choose to
give directions, good character evidence was considered relevant primarily to credibility and then only where the
defendant gave evidence. The practice changed as the appellate courts were confronted with a flood of appeals from
defendants complaining that they had been treated unfairly by the trial judge. This culminated in the decisions in Vye
and others [1993] 1 WLR 471; [1993] 3 All ER 241; [1993] 97 Cr.App.R.134 and R v. Aziz [1996] AC 41 considered
the two leading authorities on good character directions.