The Gazette 1992

GAZETTE

JULY/AUGUST 1992

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(1) non-disclosure of material

by Eamonn G. Hall

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.

evidence to the defence which amounted to a material irregularity;

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:

(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,

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