Clark, R. v
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE DAVIS
- MR JUSTICE MITTING
Areas of Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Evidence Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This case involves an appeal against conviction for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, where the appellant contested the admission of previous convictions as evidence. The jury convicted the appellant, and the appeal was dismissed, upholding the trial judge's decision under Criminal Justice Act 2003 provisions.
J U D G M E N T
1. LORD JUSTICE DAVIS: This is yet another appeal against conviction based on a judge's decision to allow the prosecution to adduce evidence of a defendant's previous convictions. In the present case the judge permitted such convictions to be adduced under the gateways provided by section 101(1)(d) and (g) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Leave to appeal against conviction has previously been given by the single judge.
2. The appellant was born on 9th March 1992. Following a retrial at Chelmsford Crown Court before His Honour Judge Ball QC and a jury, she was unanimously convicted by the jury of a count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. In due course she was sentenced to a two year community order.
3. The circumstances of the offending were, briefly put, these. The complainant was a young woman named Chelsea Robinson. She was returning from a night out in Harlow. She was on her own and approached a taxi queue in the early hours of 13th May 2012. There she saw a man she knew called Roberts, having met him relatively recently at a party. It appeared, according to her, that Roberts was involved in some kind of disturbance. When she spoke to him he seemed angry. The appellant was at that time Roberts' partner and was with him that evening. The complainant was to say that Roberts told the appellant to hit her (that is to say the complainant) and she was struck on the head by the appellant with a shoe which the appellant had in her hand. She fell to the ground and, according to her, was then further kicked and punched. She was then taken from the scene by a man and subsequently she went to the Accident and Emergency department at a local hospital. Stitches were inserted into her forehead where she had been cut and she also had various marks and bruises, in particular to her arm.
4. She made no complaint to the police at the time. But thereafter she was, as she was to say, persuaded by her mother and friends to do so; and eventually she gave a witness statement, followed by a second witness statement. Her mother also was to give evidence at trial about the complainant's state the following morning after she had returned home and of what the complainant said had happened. Contemporaneous medical notes were also put in evidence.
5. When interviewed, the appellant herself made no comment. The defence was to be that so far from the appellant being the attacker, it was she who had been attacked by the complainant. She had tried to d