R v. Coutts (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)), (2006)

Extract

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R v. Coutts (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)), (2006)

HOUSE

OF LORDS

SESSION 2005-06

[2006] UKHL 39

on appeal

from [2005] EWCA Crim 52

OPINIONS

OF

THE LORDS OF APPEAL

for

judgment IN THE CAUSE

R

v.

Coutts (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal

Division))

Appellate Committee

Lord Bingham of Cornhill

Lord Nicholls of

Birkenhead

Lord Hutton

Lord Rodger of Earlsferry

Lord Mance

Counsel

Appellants:

Edward Fitzgerald

QC

Paul Taylor

(Instructed by Fisher

Meredith)

Respondents:

John Kelsey-Fry QC

Mark Summers

(Instructed by Crown

Prosecution Service)

Hearing

dates:

14 and 15 June 2006

on

WEDNESDAY

19 July 2006

HOUSE OF LORDS

OPINIONS OF THE LORDS OF APPEAL FOR JUDGMENT

IN THE CAUSE

R v. Coutts (Appellant) (On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division))

[2006] UKHL 39

LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL

My Lords,

1.  The appellant, Mr Coutts, was convicted of murder on an indictment charging him with that crime alone. Evidence was adduced at the trial which would have enabled a rational jury, if they accepted it, to convict him of manslaughter. But the trial judge, with the support of the prosecution and the consent of the defence, did not leave an alternative count of manslaughter to the jury. He directed the jury that they should convict of murder if satisfied that the appellant had committed that offence and, if not so satisfied, acquit. On his appeal to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) the appellant contended that a manslaughter verdict should have been left to the jury for their consideration, irrespective of the parties' wishes, since there was evidence to support it. The Court of Appeal rejected that contention, and by leave of the House the appellant now challenges its decision. The narrow question raised by the appeal is whether, on the facts of this case, the trial judge should have left an alternative verdict of manslaughter to the jury. The broader question, of more general public importance, concerns the duty and discretion of trial judges to leave alternative verdicts of lesser-included offences to the jury where there is evidence which a rational jury could accept to support such a verdict but neither prosecution nor defence seek it.

The facts and the proceedings

2.  The facts of the case were summarised at some length by the Court of Appeal ([2005] EWCA Crim 52, [2005] 1 WLR 1605), and are the subject of a fairly detailed statement agreed between the parties for the purpose of this appeal. For present purposes a bare outline will suffice.

3.  The deceased (Jane Longhurst) lived with her male partner in Brighton. The appellant and his girlfriend Lisa Stephens lived in a flat in Hove. Lisa Stephens was a friend of the deceased, with whom the appellant became acquainted. On 14 March 2003 the deceased died at the appellant's flat. He stored her body first in his car, then in his shed, then in a commercial storage facility. On 19 April he took her body to an area of woodland some distance away and set fire to it. When found, the body was burning and unclothed. It had a ligature made from a pair of tights tied twice around the neck, with a knot on the right-hand side. The appellant was interviewed by the police before and after discovery of the body, but prevaricated for reasons which he later sought to explain and justify. Some weeks later he told a legal representative that he had not intended to kill the deceased or cause her serious harm, and that he had never caused harm to anybody in the past when using ligatures in sexual activities. He was charged with murder and in due course tried before His Honour Judge Brown and a jury in the Crown Court at Lewes.

4.  The expert pathologists called by the prosecution and the defence respectively at the trial were agreed that the cause of the deceased's death was compression of her neck by the ligature, causing her to be asphyxiated. But they disagreed on the most likely mechanism. The prosecution expert thought vascular strangulation or respiratory strangulation the most likely mechanisms, and considered vagal inhibition to be less likely. The defence expert thought vagal inhibition the most likely explanation. Both experts gave reasons for holding the opinions which they did, which were fully explored in evidence before the jury. The evidence suggested that death, if caused by vascular or respiratory strangulation, would have occurred within about 2-3 minutes; if by vagal inhibition, it would have occurred more quickly, possibly within 1-2 seconds.

5.  Much of the evidence at trial was directed to the appellant's sexual habits and propensities. One witness, called by the prosecution, had had a seven-year r...

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