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2010 MarsdenLR 2302
COURT OF APPEAL ENGLAND AND WALES
REGINA – Appellant
Versus
ROBERT WALTER LEWIS – Respondent
[Case No: 2009/02970/B3]
Clear jury instructions regarding causation and the victim's response are essential in manslaughter cases to ensure lawful convictions.
Headnote:(A) Criminal Law - Manslaughter - The appellant convicted of manslaughter for the death of victim during a confrontation - Essential question of causation and foreseeability addressed - Appeal based on failure of trial judge to adequately instruct jury regarding elements of unlawful act manslaughter and causation principles. (Paras [4], [32], [40])
(B) A trial judge must give clear directions to juries regarding essential elements of the offender's unlawful act and the victim's response to threats - Failure to clarify these aspects can lead to misinterpretation of causation. (Paras [5], [41])
Facts of the case:
The appellant, while driving, confronted students on the road leading to an altercation. The victim, Christopher Gray, fled from the appellant and was subsequently struck by a car, resulting in his death. (Paras [3], [4], [20])
Findings of Court:
Court emphasized that for conviction, the prosecution must establish a clear connection between the defendant's actions and the victim's death, particularly focusing on the victim's state of awareness during the chase. (Paras [25], [32])
Issues: The court addressed whether the victim's actions constituted a foreseeable consequence of the appellant's unlawful conduct and whether the jury was properly directed on these issues. (Paras [24], [32])
Ratio Decidendi: The court held that causation requires that the victim’s flight must be a foreseeable reaction to the appellant’s unlawful act. The judge's instructions to the jury were found adequate in conveying this necessity. (Paras [41], [43])
Result: Appeal dismissed.
[1] The appellant has leave from the single judge, Sir Geoffrey Grigson, to pursue two grounds of appeal against his conviction for manslaughter on 28 September 2005 following a trial at Birmingham Crown Court before His Honour Judge Matthews and a jury. The appellant seeks the leave of the Court to argue two further grounds.
[2] The conviction arose from an incident which occurred in the Bristol Road, a main thoroughfare in Birmingham, during the early hours of 23 October 2004. A group of students were alighting from a taxi and making their way across the road. The appellant, who was then aged 43, was driving a 4x4 Isuzu motor vehicle, accompanied as passengers by his friend Carlos Morris and two females to whom he was giving a lift. His progress was impeded by the pedestrians. He sounded the horn of his vehicle and remonstrated. At trial the appellant said that he was met with abuse (although that was disputed by the students). He got out of the vehicle and approached one of the students who had, he said, struck the vehicle with his hand.
[3] During the course of the incident which followed, it was the prosecution case that the appellant pushed aside one of the female students, Victoria Gray. Her brother, Christopher Gray, intervened either to punch or to push the appellant. Having done so, he ran from the scene into the road, where an oncoming car collided with him, causing fatal injuries.
[4] The critical question for the jury, it is common ground, was whether the deceased, Christopher Gray, ran or continued to run as a flight response to an attack or threatened attack by the appellant. If so, it was open to the jury to find the appellant guilty of unlawful act manslaughter. If, however, he was either unaware that he was under attack or threatened attack, or if his flight was of his own volition and unrelated to any act of the appellant's, or not reasonably foreseeable, then the appellant was entitled to an acquittal.
[5] The first ground upon which the appellant has leave is the assertion that the trial judge failed to give a clear direction as to how the prosecution put its case on the essential elements of unlawful act manslaughter. The judge should have directed them that, if they concluded the deceased had or may have decided to run of his own volition, they could only convict of manslaughter, the deceased continued to run as a result of becoming aware that the appellant was chasing him.
[6] As a further corollary to the same argument, Mr Taylor has submitted that the jury should have been directed that they could not convict if they found that the deceased started running of his own volition and was unaware throughout that the appellant was chasing him because if that was the situation, nothing that the appellant did would have caused the deceased to continue running.
[7] The second ground on which the appellant has leave is that the judge failed to direct the jury in terms of the proportionality between the attack or threatened attack, which constituted the unlawful act, and the response of the deceased to run into the road. Without such a reference, Mr Taylor submits, the jury would not have understood the significance of the new act of the deceased which might have broken the chain of causation.
[8] We turn to consider the evidence heard by the jury. It fell into the following categories usefully identified by Mr Taylor in his Advice: (1) the students; (2) the motorists; (3) the bystanders; (4) the accident investigator, scientific evidence and evidence of the police interviews; and (5) the defence evidence at trial.
[9] The students who, generally speaking, were in the deceased's group had been drinking -- some more than others. We shall refer only to the evidence concerning the critical moments before the collision, and only by way of summary of that evidence.
[10] Yasmine Lally said that she had consumed four small glasses of wine and was neither drunk nor sober, although she was tired. She said t
