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GAZETTE
W B
Irlimiln
I
JULY/AUGUST 1992
i S E J j f c
ItkiMBM
by Eamonn G. Hall
Non-disclosure by Prosecution
Resulted in Miscarriage of Justice
The case of
Regina
-v-
Ward,
Court
of Appeal (England and Wales),
{The
Independent,
London, Law Report,
June 5, 1992)
{The Times
, Law
Report, June 8, 1992) will go down in
history as an important case for many
reasons. One reason why the case will
be remembered is for the celebrated
dictum of the judges: "Our law does
not tolerate a conviction to be secured
by ambush." That dictum applies
equally to Irish law.
The Court of Appeal (Glidewell,
Nolan and Steyn, LJJ) held that
non-disclosure of material evidence
by the West Yorkshire Police, by
staff of the DPP and counsel who
advised them, by the psychiatrists
who prepared the medical reports on
the appellant, and by the forensic
scientists who gave evidence for the
prosecution at the trial constituted
material irregularities at the
appellant's trial.
The Court of Appeal quashed the
convictions of Judith Teresa Ward,
of 4 November, 1974, for 15 counts
relating to bomb explosions in 1973
at Euston station, and in 1974 on a
coach on the M62 and at the
National Defence College, Latimer,
Buckinghamshire.
The prosecution case had been based
on voluntary admissions made by Ms
Ward to the police and scientific
evidence that traces of nitro-glycerine
were found on her and her property.
The defence had challenged the
scientific evidence and its case was
that Ms Ward was a pathological
liar, a female "Walter Mitty."
On the Home Secretary's reference
under section 17(1) (a) of the UK
Criminal Appeal Act, 1968,
three
main grounds of appeal were argued:
(1) non-disclosure of material
evidence to the defence which
amounted to a material
irregularity;
(2) evidence which cast doubt on the
scientific evidence at trial; and
(3) fresh evidence establishing that
Ms Ward was suffering from a
severe personality disorder at the
time of the trial.
After hearing the fresh medical
evidence, the Court of Appeal
concluded that Ms Ward's
admissions could not be relied on as
being true and on that ground alone
her convictions were unsafe and
unsatisfactory.
The Court of Appeal read the 139
page judgment in turn and stated
that the failure of the prosecution to
disclose to the defence evidence
which ought to have been disclosed
was an "irregularity in the course of
the trial" within section 2(1) (a) of
the UK
Criminal Appeal Act, 1968.
Non-disclosure was a potent source
of injustice. The duty to disclose all
relevant evidence of help to the
accused was not limited to evidence
which would obviously advance the
accused's case.
The Court stated that where public
interest immunity was raised the
court and not the litigant must be
the ultimate judge of where the
balance of public interest lay. If,
exceptionally, the prosecution were
not prepared to have that issue
determined by a court, the
prosecution would have to be
abandoned.
In their judgment, the judges stated
that the West Yorkshire Police took
statements from more than 1,700
people. Only 225 were forwarded to
the DPP. The court concluded that
this was wrong. The relevance of the
West Yorkshire Police statements,
including interviews with Ms Ward,
lay in their bearing on Ms Ward's
proclivities for attention seeking,
fantasy and the making and
withdrawal of untrue confessions.
Certain police interviews with Ms
Ward were not disclosed by the DPP
to the defence on the advice of
counsel. Their non-disclosure and
that of medical reports amounted to
material irregularities.
Three senior government forensic
scientists, stated the court,
deliberately withheld experimental
data on the ground that it might
damage the prosecution case.
An incident of a defendant's right to
a fair trial was a right to timely
disclosure by the prosecution of all
material matters which affected the
scientific case relied on by the
prosecution, that is, whether such
matters strengthened or weakened
the prosecution case or assisted the
defence case. That duty existed
whether or not a specific request for
disclosure was made by the defence.
The Court stated that that duty was
continuous: it applied not only in
the pre-trial evidence but also
throughout the trial. In Ms Ward's
case, the disclosure of scientific
evidence was woefully deficient.
Senior government forensic scientists
knowingly placed a false and
distorted scientific picture before the
jury, according to the judges. That
irregularity would have required the
court to quash Ms Ward's
conviction. The judges then stated
that the law did not tolerate a
conviction to be secured by ambush.
The Court of Appeal stated the cause
of injustice on the scientific side of
the case stemmed from the three
government forensic scientists
becoming partisan. It was the clear
duty of government forensic scientists
to assist in a neutral and impartial
way in criminal investigations.
221