England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2 Thursday, 12th December 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: On 22nd November 1999, in the Crown Court at Bristol before His Honour Judge Dyer, this appellant pleaded guilty on rearraignment to manslaughter and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He had earlier pleaded guilty to supplying a Class A drug which was count 3 in the indictment and he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment in respect of that offence to be concurrent with the sentence of life imprisonment imposed subsequent to his plea of guilty to the offence of manslaughter. He pleaded not guilty to administering a noxious substance, which was count 2 on the indictment and that matter was left on the file on the usual terms.
2. The facts were sadly not uncommon but tragic. On 4th February 1999, Andrew Beacock and an acquaintance Philip Baglin met a man called Adrian Huddleston at the bus station in Bristol. There was a discussion about drugs and they went to the Salvation Army Hostel where Beacock and Baglin were residents and Huddleston obtained a room.
3. The appellant was also staying there. He was known to be a person who could supply heroin. He was summoned to Beacock's room and Huddleston contributed £10 to buy heroin. The appellant produced three syringes which had been used previously but flushed out. He prepared two wraps of heroin for injection using a spoon and a cigarette lighter provided by Baglin. Baglin expressed some concern about the drug, but was reassured by the appellant. Beacock told the appellant that he was not used to injecting heroin. Beacock, the appellant and Baglin took the heroin. Huddleston said he did not want any. When Huddleston left the room Beacock was lying quietly on the bed, Baglin passed out. When he regained consciousness the next morning he found him Beacock on the floor and believed him to be dead. Having called the emergency services, Baglin saw the appellant in the hostel canteen and told Beacock was dead and advised him to wait for the police and to tell the truth. The appellant however left.
4. He was arrested at the bus station on 8th February when he gave a false name. In interview he admitted supplying the heroin but denied injecting Beacock. The cause of death was established to be acute morphine overdose.
5. There was an issue as to whether or not Beacock had been injected by the appellant. That was an issue which, in the end, had to be resolved on the basis that at any rate it was possible that Beacock injected himself. Crown counsel indicated at trial that the case would be left to the jury on the alternative basis that the appellant merely prepared and supplied the drug. It was on that basis that the appellant pleaded guilty.
6. The matter was understandable because, at that stage, there was in existence a decision of this Court in R v Kennedy [1999] Crim LR 65, which indicated that, in the view of this Court, the offence was made out where a person such as this appellant supplied a drug to someone else who then either injected themselves or a third party because it was an unlawful act simply to supply the drug and that constituted a sufficient unlawful act for the offence of manslaughter.
7. That decision was subject to a degree of academic criticism but it was the law at the time when this appellant appeared before the Crown Court at Bristol in November 1999. At any rate it was what was understood to be the law. Consequently it should be said that the advice tendered to the appellant at that time was sound. It accorded with the law as then understood.
8. However, the subject was revisited in the case of Dias, which was decided by this Court on 13th December 2001 and is now reported at (2002) 2 Cr App R 5, [2001] EWCA Crim 2986 In that case, where the facts were for all material purposes the same as those which were accepted by the Crown as a possible alternative in the present case, the Court considered the previous authorities, including in particular the case of Kennedy and pointed out at paragraph 21 of the judgment that there is no offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 or any other statute, or at common law of injecting oneself with a prohibited drug. Paragraph 22 of the judgment goes on:

"There is the offence of possession of such a drug and that offence was committed by [Escott in that case, the deceased]. We have considered therefore whether that renders the act of injection unlawful for these purposes but we find it difficult to see it can do so. The causative act, the act of causing death was essentially the injection of the heroin rather than the possession of it. Self injection undoubtedly requires unlawful possession in a case such as this, but it is not in itself a separate offence. No one could be charged with injecting himself with heroin, only the possession of it. The deceased was in possession of the heroin before he injected it and also after he had injected it. Such possession amounted to an offence but the act of injecting was not itself part of the offence, it was merely made possible by the unlawful possession of the heroin."

9. Consequently, the court in the case of Dias answered the question which was posed by the trial judge in that case, namely: "was I correct, as a matter of law, to direct the jury that it is unlawful for a man to inject heroin into himself", negatively. That reasoning, as set out by this Court in Dias, clearly applies to the facts of the present case. That is why the case of this appellant has been referred back to this Court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Accordingly, having applied that reasoning to the facts of this case we accept that the conviction in respect of manslaughter albeit a conviction which resulted from a plea of guilty, must now be quashed. This appeal is therefore allowed.