Jersey Unreported Judgments

Criminal-Defence application to adduce evidence

[2014]JRC103

Royal Court

(Samedi)

6 May 2014

The Attorney General

-v-

T

Miss S. J. O'Donnell, Crown Advocate.

Advocate C. Hall for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE COMMISSIONER:

1.        I am not going to permit exploration of this topic before the Jury, my reasons are as follows:-

2.        The Defence Advocate with commendable candour seeks to explore through Detective Constable Percival, the officer in the case, a threat to Witness G by Witness B.  The relevance, it being submitted, is that that demonstrates, because of the connection between Witness B and the complainant Witness H, the extent to which the latter would go in the animus that she holds towards the defendant in this case.  The problem with that is the remoteness.  It is, in my judgment, far too remote to be properly explored before the Jury because it touches not on the credit directly or indirectly of the complainant.  The Witness B relationship with the complainant has been explored to the extent that it properly can be by the Defence Advocate and she is bound by the answer that she has received on the Social Security fraud, so called. 

3.        To extend this extremely collateral issue any further would, in my judgment be counter-productive in terms of the matters that the Jury are properly charged with deciding between the Crown, based on the evidence of Witness H relating directly to the grave and criminal assaults that she alleges against the defendant and the indecent assault.  To take it any further than those matters would, in my judgment, be potentially misleading and wholly irrelevant so for those reasons this application is refused. 

No Authorities