Jersey Unreported Judgments

Magistrate's Court Appeal - appeal against decision to refuse bail application.

[2015]JRC239

Royal Court

(Samedi)

20 November 2015

Jose Carlos Abreu Saturnino

-v-

The Attorney General

M. Maletroit, Esq.,Crown Advocate.

Advocate D. S. Steenson for the Defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE DEPUTY BAILIFF:

1.        This is a difficult case, as both parties accept.  The Court has sat at extremely short notice to consider an appeal against the refusal by the Assistant Magistrate on 9^th November, to grant bail to the defendant.  He stands charged with one count of assault and one count of possession of offensive weapons, in this case a steak knife and a Stanley knife. 

2.        The Assistant Magistrate declined bail solely, as he said, out of concern that the defendant may commit further offences.  The material before him for that concern amounted to statements and submissions made by the prosecution; clear evidence of difficulties with the defendant's mental state; the defendant's own admissions as to his reasons for carrying the weapons and, quite starkly, the fact that he had been carrying the weapons for some six to eight months previously.  There was some suggestion that the present charges could represent, given his otherwise largely good record, an acceleration of offending, and that is a matter that could have been of concern to the Assistant Magistrate. 

3.        We recall that the Assistant Magistrate was assured by defence counsel that there was an alternate address available to the defendant and that the defendant had no intention, in the light of the matters then before the court, to carry weapons in the future but that is not something, in our view, that the Assistant Magistrate was required to accept at face value. 

4.        The test for us to apply is well understood and it is perhaps most simply stated in the case of Evans and Evans-v-AG [2011] JRC 199 where at paragraph 6 the Court indicated that the considerations for us was whether or not:-

"(i)      The Court was of the view that the Magistrate had misdirected himself;

(ii)       There was some procedural irregularity; or

(iii)      The decision reached by the Magistrate was one which no reasonable Magistrate could properly have reached."

5.        There is no suggestion that the Assistant Magistrate misdirected himself on this occasion and, indeed, he referred to one of the classic grounds for consideration as to bail, namely the risk of reoffending.  There is no suggestion of a procedural irregularity.  Accordingly, the matter before us was whether or not this was a decision that a reasonable Magistrate could or could not have taken. 

6.        We cannot see, applying that test that the Assistant Magistrate's decision is open to any criticism and accordingly, we dismiss this appeal.  The decision of the Assistant Magistrate stands. 

7.        We express the strong hope, and to the extent that that hope can be turned into any kind of action, we would wish it to be so, that the defendant is assessed at the earliest opportunity and in the light of an assessment properly made, the question of bail can be revisited before the Magistrate if the grounds are there to revisit it.  We are all the more concerned that this assessment takes place given that there is some suggestion, and we can make no firm observation about it, that the defendant's mental state may be deteriorating. 

Authorities

Evans and Evans-v-AG [2011] JRC 199.