CASE OF PETER ARMSTRONG v. THE UNITED KINGDOM
Remainder inadmissible;No violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Criminal proceedings;Article 6-1 - Impartial tribunal)
George Nicolaou;Ineta Ziemele;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Ledi Bianku;Päivi Hirvelä;Paul Mahoney;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
5. The applicant was born in 1955 and is currently detained at HM Prison Long Lartin, Evesham. 6. On 3 August 2007, the applicant stabbed a man at his home in Liverpool. The man died of his injuries. When the police arrived at the house, they found the applicant sitting in a chair, and he told them, “He’s my best friend and I’ve stabbed him”. The applicant was arrested and taken to the police station. When interviewed, he claimed that the victim had entered the house and attacked him, and that he was acting in self-defence. 7. The applicant was charged with murder and his trial began in the Crown Court at Liverpool before a judge and a jury. The applicant’s defence to the charge was one of self-defence. 8. On the first day of trial, a member of the jury informed the court that he was a retired police officer. He had been retired for many years and had not served in any of the units involved in the case. He did not recognise the names of any of the police officers in the case. The judge brought the matter to the attention of counsel and invited observations. The applicant’s counsel explained that he had not had the opportunity to speak to the applicant about the matter and continued: “...[B]ut can I say without having exercised that right that the advice which I will [be] giving him is that there is no objection on the face of it even for a serving police officer remaining on the jury in a case of this sort provided that the officer in question, or in this case the retired officer in question, has no knowledge of the case and the parties to the case or any of the police officers who may be concerned with it.” 9. He went on to refer to “obvious exceptions”, including where the police officer juror had some connection with the case or where there was a “significant challenge to police evidence as a necessary part of the conduct of the defence”, adding: “That does not apply in this case, the police evidence is, I will not say it is completely agreed but there is no significant challenge to the police evidence which would have any realistic impact on the jury’s verdict in this case.” 10. A short adjournment took place to allow the applicant’s counsel to investigate whether the retired officer had any connection or contact with the case. Following the adjournment, defence counsel confirmed that he had no representations to make. 11. On the second day of the trial, another member of the jury informed the court that he was a serving police officer and that he recognised a man sitting at the back of the court as a police officer. 12. Prosecuting counsel confirmed that the man in question was the officer in charge of the case, but explained that they did not intend to call him as a witness. They had made inquiries with the man, who had clarified that when he was an inspector at St Helen’s, a town near Liverpool, around four years earlier the police officer juror had been serving there as a constable. The man had not been the juror’s line manager. He suggested that inquiries ought to be made into the juror’s knowledge of the man, but suggested that it would be sufficient if the man were to remain outside the courtroom, as the rest of the jury did not know who he was and none of the jurors knew why he was there. 13. Defence counsel said that he wanted to know how much the juror knew about the man and about other officers involved in the case. The judge sought confirmation of the precise information required by the defence and proposed to prepare a list of questions for the juror on that basis, which he would share with counsel before they were put to the juror. Defence counsel indicated that his “provisional reaction” was that provided the answers to the questions were satisfactory there would be no problem. 14. The judge rose and returned to read his proposed questions to counsel and to the applicant. The questions were: - What is the extent of your knowledge of the police officer with the beard who you say you recognized sitting in court yesterday? - What were the circumstances in which you came to know him? - When and where prior to yesterday was your last contact with him? - What is your present rank? - Where are you currently based? - Please look at the list of police officers who will give evidence. Have you any knowledge of them? If so, what is the extent of this knowledge? 15. Defence counsel made no comment on the proposed questions. They were duly put to the police officer juror. Following a short adjournment, the judge set out the result of the investigation: “I say it in open court so there is no doubt about it. I understand that the juror in question knew the man with the beard, as I shall call him, at St Helen’s when the man with the beard was his inspector. This was a few years ago. He was able to give his name ... He has not, however, seen him since that inspector left St Helen’s, which he thinks was perhaps as long ago as four years. He makes clear that the inspector was his inspector for a few months but he did not see him socially or out of hours. The juror is currently a serving Police Constable at St Helen’s and he indicates he knows no-one on the list [of police officer witnesses]. Any observations?” 16. Defence counsel responded as follows: “No, my Lord. I am quite happy that the juror may continue to serve. I understand that he does not wish other jurors to be told that he is a police officer and that is understandable, his occupation is irrelevant to his jury serving and his participation in these proceedings.” 17. On 22 January 2008 the applicant was convicted of murder. On 24 January 2008 he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a tariff of thirteen years. 18. The applicant sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal on the ground that the presence of the serving police officer on his jury created a real possibility of actual or apparent bias which rendered his conviction unsafe. 19. On 28 November 2008 permission to appeal was refused on the papers. The judge considered that no fair-minded and informed observer with full knowledge of the relevant facts as disclosed in the discussions between counsel and the trial judge would conclude that there was a real possibility that the jury were biased. He further observed that the police evidence was not in dispute and that the applicant’s trial counsel, who was pre-eminently placed to assess the situation, had made no objection to either juror sitting on the jury after full inquiry had been concluded. 20. The applicant renewed his application for leave to appeal before the full court. He argued that bias in his case arose from the following factors: that police witnesses and other witnesses closely connected to the police were cross-examined; that the juror was an officer in the same police force as the police witnesses and the officer in charge of the case, although was not based at the same police station; and that the juror had served under the officer in charge of the case some four years earlier. 21. On 8 June 2009, following an oral hearing, the Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal. It noted the factors relied on by the applicant as suggesting bias, but considered that, against those factors, were the fact that the juror had no particular knowledge of the facts of the case; that he knew none of the police witnesses who were due to be called; and that he had had no contact with the officer in charge of the case for some four years. The court rejected the suggestion that the juror had worked out that the man at the back of the court was the officer in charge of the case, or indeed that he had any connection with the case. It concluded: “1.20 It is apparent that the mere fact that a juror is a serving policeman is not sufficient to give rise to a real risk of bias. There must be some other factor connecting him to the case in order to give rise to that risk. This was not a case in which the police evidence was in any sense hotly contested, despite the fact that some of the witnesses were cross-examined. In the circumstances, in our view, the suggestion that there was some additional connection between this juror and the office in charge of the case could be little more than speculation.”