Grazette v The Director of Pubic Prosecutions [2012] EWHC 3863 (Admin)

Case No CO/7714/2012[2012] EWHC 3863 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Venue Royal Courts of JusticeDate Friday, 26 October 2012
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
B e f o r e:
LORD JUSTICE MOSES
MR JUSTICE SIMON
Between
ADRIAN GRAZETTEAppellantv
Between
THE DIRECTOR OF PUBIC PROSECUTIONSRespondent
Computer-Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes ofWordWave International LimitedA Merrill Communications Company190 Fleet Street London EC4A 2AGTel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Mr J Hasslacher (instructed by GT Stevert) appeared for AppellantMR LODATO (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) appeared for Respondent
J U D G M E N T

LORD JUSTICE MOSES:

[1]This is an appeal by way of case stated from the Croydon Magistrates' Court. The case was stated on 13 June 2012 setting out findings and conclusions of an adjudication on 22 February 2012.[2]The appellant was charged with an allegation of assault on Rochelle Bowen, which was alleged to have taken place on 22 October 2011. There was apparently no dispute but that she had been threatened, shoulder-charged and punched in a public place, a shopping centre.[3]The attacker left the scene and was apparently accompanied by someone else known as "Robs". There was a background to the assault, namely a dispute as to whether money was owed for a mobile phone that the victim said she did not owe. Part of the threats that took place prior to the assault included a text apparently from the man known as Robs "Nasty in the building, UR not getting no £40 (the money she wanted to be refunded) you slag". She described seeing Robs and a man that she said she knew, who was black, wearing a blue and white tracksuit, about 5'8" tall of stocky build and in his late 20s. This was the man described by the witness.[4]Miss Bowen, however, described the man who attacked her as being aged in his 30s, about 5'10" tall with short baldy hair carrying weight, as she put it, through taking steroids and wearing a tracksuit as described by her friend.[5]The issue, as it turned out at the hearing (although there was said by the prosecution to be no advance notice of this, a matter hotly in dispute) was identity. The evidence of identification, besides the description given by the victim of the assault, was this: she knew him because she had been brought up in the same area and had seen him around the local park; she knew him through people on the street rather than as a friend. Then there was this, which is of importance in this appeal, she knew that his parents either lived or used to live in Nutfield Rd, Thornton Heath, his street name was Nasty and his first name was Adrian, and she gave this information to the police.[6]When it appeared that the prosecution appreciated that identification was in issue, they adduced from the officer in the case, a PC Galloway, evidence of an intelligence check conducted by another police officer on what is known as CRIMINT, that is the Criminal Intelligence Information, which is a computer record of intelligence information received by Metropolitan Police officers in the course of their work. PC Galloway is recorded as saying that officers can use the system for recording giving access to information. He said this:
"The check came back linking the name to Adrian Grazette [that is this appellant] and the address of 59 Nutfield Road, Thornton Heath, which he gave as his address at the commencement of the trial."
[7]The issue then arose, once the defence, not Mr Hasslacher at that time, raised the point as to whether it was legitimate for the magistrates to admit the evidence of what purported to be contained in the Criminal Intelligence Report as evidence that the appellant did use the street name "Nasty", and was the man known as Nasty as well as Adrian, as recorded by the victim. The magistrates considered the arguments that were raised, pursuant to section 117 of the Criminal

Justice Act 2003, and concluded as follows:

"We ruled that the extract from CRIMINT recorded on the custody record was a business document. We ruled that the objections made under Sections 117(2) (b), 117(5)(b) and 116(2)(d) were not made out. We referred to the tests at (a)-(c) of section 117(7) and took into account that the original source of the information was unknown, and that the evidence was multiple hearsay. We did not find the reliability of the evidence doubtful under that section and therefore did not make a direction."
[8]They then record their rejection of a further submission made under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, that it was unfair to the proceedings to admit the evidence. They accordingly admitted it and relied upon it in identifying the defendant as the assailant.[9]The case stated poses a number of questions as to whether it was proper to rely upon that extract as to the truth of the proposition that the defendant before them, this appellant Grazette, was Nasty. They asked the question in a number of different ways, but for the purposes of this appeal it is necessary only to focus upon certain provisions of section 117 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It is plain that section 117(1) was satisfied. The statement would have been that "Adrian Grazette was known as Nasty", and could have been given by someone who was able to give that evidence as oral evidence. However, the requirements of subsection (2) need to be satisfied.[10]There was, it appeared, some dispute, certainly in the helpful written argument on behalf of the appellant, as to whether section 117(2)(a) was satisfied, but it is plain that the contents of the Criminal Intelligence Report was created or received by a person in the course of the occupation or profession of police officer. Those requirements were plainly satisfied. So too it was accepted were the requirements that the information once given was passed through a number of different people to the recipient from the relevant person, that is the original supplier of the information, all of whom received the information in the course of their profession either as ancillaries, or as police constables, so that section 117(2)(c) was also satisfied.[11]The nub of the appeal turned on whether the person who supplied the information contained in the statement (the relevant person) had, or may reasonably be supposed to have had, personal knowledge of the matters dealt with (see section 117(2)(b)). The argument that is advanced with cogency and skill by Mr Hasslacher is that no one can know the source of the information that was contained in the Criminal Intelligence Report. All it says is Adrian Grazette, alias street name Nasty, gives a date of birth and an address of 59 Nutfield Road, Thornton Heath. The source is completely unknown. For all one knows the original source merely heard that information from somebody else and therefore could not reasonably be supposed to have any personal knowledge of it. In short, the absence of any identification of the original source linking his client, Grazette, with the street name Nasty and that address is fatal to the admissibility and reliance upon the information under section 117(2)(b), and indeed various other provisions, to which I shall turn shortly.[12]I disagree. The importance of the information comes in linking not only the defendant with Nasty, but also with a particular address. Bearing in mind that those two features are linked, coupled with an identification, namely gender: male IC3, which matches the defendant, was powerful evidence that the defendant was the man known as Nasty. Important evidence that further demonstrated that reliability, and that the person who gave the information may reasonably be supposed to have had personal knowledge of it, is the very fact of an address with a number in the road being given. It was not just Thornton Heath generally, but it was a particular premises. There was evidence that the appellant had been arrested at that address. That too spoke of personal knowledge. Further, there was the evidence from the complainant herself. She linked Nasty with Adrian because she knew the man she knew as Nasty also as Adrian, as she said in her evidence. Further, as she said in her evidence, she linked those names with an address that matched the address, although it did not have the number of the house, in the Criminal Intelligence Report.[13]So if one is asking, as one is statutorily required to ask, the question "May it reasonably be supposed that the person who supplied that information had personal knowledge of those links," the answer as the magistrates were entitled to conclude was, "Yes. How else would the person not only link the defendant with the nickname, but also an address that proved to be the same address as that of which the complainant was aware, and the same address where he was arrested?" It was open and legitimate for the magistrates to look at the content of the information, its context in the Criminal Information Report, as supporting the proposition that the person who supplied it had personal knowledge of the matters dealt with.[14]Mr Hasslacher in addition seeks graphically to demonstrate what might be the inherent unreliability of information in the Criminal Intgelligence Report by showing us another example, and by rightly emphasising that in fact the Criminal Intelligence Report was never produced. All that was produced was a statement containing an extract from it. Thus, whether it was hedged round with doubts or qualifications could not be known. All of those points, in my view, were well made, but did not displace the force of the precise information contained within the statement, which, for the reasons I have attempted to give, amply justified the view that the source may reasonably be supposed to have had personal knowledge of the matters dealt with.[15]It is not now argued, although it might have been argued earlier, that the additional requirements of subsection (5) had to be satisfied, because it is not now argued that for the purposes of subsection (4) of section 117 the document was prepared for the purposes of a criminal investigation.[16]But underlying the particularity of section 117(2)(b) is of course the concern the magistrates were bound to have as to the reliability of the source of the information when considering section 117(7), and the circumstances in which the information was supplied or received. Since the source was unknown there could be no warranty as to reliability, submits Mr Hasslacher.[17]However, having regard to the features of the nature of the information, to which I have already drawn attention, in my view no separate point was to be made as to reliability and the magistrates were perfectly entitled to take the view that the information was sufficiently reliable for it to be admitted and relied upon.[18]Added to that was the argument advanced under section 78 of the 1984 Act, but I cannot see that there was any separate argument to be made as to the propriety, or otherwise, of admitting this evidence and relying upon it as to the truth of its contents. For those reasons I would dismiss the appeal and answer the questions that are separated out in the case stated, which I shall not read out, in the negative. The important point is that the document was a business document and it was not an error of law to allow it to be admitted and relied upon in evidence.

MR JUSTICE SIMON: I agree.

LORD JUSTICE MOSES: Thank you both very much.