Three Cases that Shook the Law

Ronald Bartle

Description

Former district judge Ronald Bartle selects three cases for close scrutiny where the defendants paid the ultimate penalty even though demonstrably the victims of injustice.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Inglaterra
• Legal history
• Wales
• England

Informations

• Publié par: Waterside Press
• Date de parution: 24 février 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781910979068
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Three Cases that Shook the Law
Ronald Bartle
Three Cases that Shook the Law
Ronald Bartle
ISBN 978-1-909976-30-6 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-910979-06-8 (Epub ebook)
ISBN 978-1-910979-07-5 (Adobe ebook)
Copyright © 2016 This work is the copyright of Ronald Bartle. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by him in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, or in any language, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide.
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Published 2016 by
Waterside Press
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Table of Contents
About the author v
Acknowledgements vi
Dedication vii
Introduction 9 Edith Jessie Thompson 19 The Background Story 21
The Marriage of Percy and Edith 22
The Road to Murder 26
The Letters 30 The Murder of Percy Thompson 35 The Trial: The Scene is Set 45 The Indictment 51 The Opening Speech of the Solicitor-General 61 The Evidence for the Prosecution 73 The Evidence of Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson 87 The Closing Speeches of Counsel 99 The Summing-up 105 The Final Tragedy 113 William Joyce 115 The Trial of William Joyce: Introduction 117 The Indictment 127 The Opening Speech for the Crown 133 Submission by the Defence on Counts One and Two 137 The Evidence for the Crown 139
Statement of offence 139
Particulars of offence 139 Crown and Defence Submission on Count Three 143
Further Submission by the Prosecution 149 The Judge’s Summing-up 157 The Appeal 161 Conclusion 163 Timothy Evans 165 Introduction: The Trial of Timothy Evans 167 The Opening Submissions 183
The Judge’s Ruling 183 The Prosecution Case 189 The Defence Case 223 Speeches and Summing up 229 The Aftermath 233
The Inquiries 234
Index 236
About the author
Ronald Bartle was Deputy Chief Stipendiary Magistrate (now District Judge) for Inner London. His books include The Telephone Murder: The Mysterious Death of Julia Wallace (2012); The Police Witness: A Guide to Presenting Evidence in Court (1984 onwards) and Bow Street Beak (Foreword Lord Hurd of Westwell) (2000).
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the following sources:
Trial of Bywaters and Thompson , Notable British Trials, 1923/1951.
Great Cases of Sir Henry Curtis Bennett , Edward Grice, 1937.
The Innocence of Edith Thompson , Lewis Broad, 1952.
A Book of Trials , Sir Travers Humphreys, 1953.
United in Crime , H Montgomery Hyde, 1955.
Great True Crime Stories — Women , Pamela Search, 1957.
Verdict in Dispute , Edgar Lustgarten, 2010 (reprint).
Trial of William Joyce , Notable British Trials, 1946.
The Meaning of Treason , Rebecca West, 1982.
Trials of Christie and Evans , Notable British Trials, 1957.
10 Rillington Place , Ludovic Kennedy, 1961.
Dedication
To my wife Molly
With grateful thanks for all her enthusiastic support and encouragement.
Introduction
T his book is concerned with three serious miscarriages of justice: the cases involved are those of Edith Jessie Thompson in 1922, William Joyce in 1945 and Timothy Evans in 1950.
It should be said at the outset that it is not the contention of this author that any of the defendants was proved to be innocent. If the burden of proof lay upon the defence it is probable that none of the three would have been able to discharge it in a court of law. Yet nothing is clearer in British courts than that the burden of proof rests with the prosecution and remains as such throughout the case. It never shifts to the defence. The judge will remind the jury of this basic and indeed vital rule of our jurisprudence. Nevertheless a situation may develop where this canon of the criminal law may become obscured.
A jury consists of 12 men and women with no expertise either in the law or the weighing of evidence but who are nevertheless entrusted, by the application of common sense, with the question of guilt or innocence. Almost invariably they discharge their onerous duty honestly and well. But jury men and women are human and are subject to human imperfection.
Although they will be reminded by the judge in his or her summing-up that they must not make up their minds until after full discussion of the case in their room it is sometimes inevitable that their view of the witnesses and their veracity is formed during the conduct of the trial. This is particularly the case where the defendant chooses to give evidence on his or her own behalf. If a defendant makes a very bad impression on the members of the jury, or on a number of them, the defence may be placed in the position of having to endeavour to rehabilitate their client. The atmosphere of the trial changes to the advantage of the prosecution.
The judge cannot be constantly reminding the jury members of their duty not to make hasty decisions. He cannot during the hearing intervene to emphasise to them that the defendant remains innocent until proved guilty to their entire satisfaction. The burden of proof remains in law upon the prosecution, but the struggling defender may well feel that it has now shifted to him to prove his client is innocent.
It is a principle of evidence in criminal trials that the jury may not only draw their conclusions from the facts which they hear, but they may draw from one fact a reasonable inference that another fact is also true. Again, the judge will assist them, but he cannot give a definition which fits the particular circumstance of each case. When is an inference reasonable? When is it not? And when is it merely a presumption — which may be erroneous. Jury trial is an admirable system of justice, but juries are not always right.
Judges also are not above the pitfalls of their profession. The fundamental quality of the good judge is impartiality and absence of bias. But there are times when this high ideal can amount almost to a counsel of perfection. In English courts of law, unlike American, the function of the judge is to direct the jury on the law and to sum up the facts so far as is necessary to help them to reach the correct verdict. It is in regard to the second of these duties that the problem arises.
A judge would be extraordinarily infallible if he never entertained his own private view of the case before him. He or she is entitled in summing-up to give effect to what he or she sees as a correct interpretation of the facts, and do what he or she regards as correct. But this can be a precarious exercise.
To criticise the way in which one side or the other has presented its case can easily look like bias. That is why some judges become known at the Bar as “ prosecution-minded”. An extreme example of the former applies to a London judge some years ago. During the course of an interview regarding his judicial office, he said that he saw his function as “ensuring that nobody pulled the wool over the eyes of the jury”. That meant in practice that in almost every case he tried he used his office for the purpose of convicting the accused person.
A further consideration is the attitude of the persons on the jury to the judge. This is important because the jury, while obliged to follow the direction of the judge on the law, does not, if it so chooses, have to adopt his recommendations on the facts. That attitude of the laity towards the judiciary has undoubtedly changed over the years. The aura of authority and superior wisdom enjoyed by what is called “the ruling class” or “the establishment” years ago no longer applies. Judges, Cabinet Ministers, bishops and the like were, up to a point, assumed to possess superior wisdom otherwise they would not occupy the positions that they did. The judge has expressed his or her view and we should give great weight to what he or she has said. This view certainly appertained in the early years of the last century. I shall in due course expand in this factor in the chapter regarding the Thompson-Bywaters trial in 1922.
No longer are judges accorded the deference which they once were. They, like juries, are seen as humanly fallible. In his book The Judges and the Judged (1926, p.2) Charles Kingston writes:
“The question of erroneous verdicts will continue to the end of time. Someone may invent an infallible jury but by then the world will have ceased to be populated by human beings, and until then justice will have its ups and downs. Judges will always have their fads and counsel will not disdain trickery in fighting a desperate battle, while juries, if they wish, will exercise the right of the free born to display prejudice and partiality.”
Finally a word about counsel. No profession has been more misunderstood than that of a barrister. Socially the position has always had a certain cachet. Yet in the eyes of many there is a tendency to look askance at the work of defending in the criminal court. The usual and somewhat time worn question is: “How can you defend someone whom you know to be guilty?” The question itself is based on a misunderstanding. It presumes