CRIMINAL DIVISION
Strand London, WC2 |
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B e f o r e :
MR JUSTICE DAVID CLARKE
MRS JUSTICE SWIFT DBE
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R E G I N A | ||
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ALAN PHILLIPS |
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(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR B CONLON appeared on behalf of the CROWN
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"Well, identification has in the past sometimes caused difficulties. Mistakes are made by completely honest witnesses when claiming to recognise someone on a parade after having only had a fleeting glimpse of a suspect committing a crime, and you should therefore be cautious in such a case. You may well want to look for supporting evidence of an identification of that sort, and you will also want to look at the conditions in which the glimpse, if that is the right word for it, or the short sighting of a criminal committing an offence, were. By 'circumstances', I mean: what was the lighting? How long did it go on for? Was the witness free to look and watch and listen or did he only have a very restricted view for some reason or another? All of those are matters you will obviously consider here because this is a case of identification, because it is said by the defence that their client, Mr Phillips, has been wrongly identified by those two as having been in the house that evening.
Well, that is all I am going to say about the law."
He then went on to other matters.
"Incidentally, he is not on trial for that, and obviously you are not going to put that in any way into the scales in deciding whether he committed this burglary or not, but it is relevant because you are going to have to consider whether that happened and how good a knowledge that gave [Mr Grant] of the defendant."