Court : House of Lords
LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. This appeal by the Crown against the decision of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal (Rix LJ, Crane J and Judge Maddison: [2003] EWCA Crim 191, [2003] 1 WLR 1489, sub nom R v Z) raises two questions. The first concerns the meaning of "confession" for the purposes of section 76(1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The second concerns the defence of duress. Anonymity 2. At trial in the Central Criminal Court, the name of the defendant Aytach Hasan ("the defendant") and the names of the main participants in the proceedings were given in open court. But two of those participants (Frank Sullivan and Claire Taeger) were then awaiting trial and the trial judge, His Honour Judge Paget QC, properly made an order under section 4(2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 prohibiting the publication of their names or any information concerning them or their forthcoming trial. This trial has now taken place and the order has been discharged. In ...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. I am in complete agreement with it, and for the reasons she gives would allow the appeal and make the order which she proposes. LORD STEYN My Lords, 2. I have read the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. I agree with it. I would also make the order which she proposes. LORD PHILLIPS OF WORTH MATRAVERS My Lords, 3. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Baroness Hale of Richmond. For the reasons which she gives I also would allow the appeal and make the order which she proposes. BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND My Lords, 4. The issue in this case is whether a patient detained for treatment under the Mental Health Act 1983 can be treated against his will for any mental disorder from which he is suffering or only for the particular form of mental disorder from which he...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. The question in this appeal is whether the parent of a minor child falsely and negligently said to have abused or harmed the child may recover common law damages for negligence against a doctor or social worker who, discharging professional functions, has made the false and negligent statement, if the suffering of psychiatric injury by the parent was a foreseeable result of making it and such injury has in fact been suffered by the parent. 2. On conventional analysis the answer to that question turns on whether the doctor or social worker owed any duty of care towards the parent, and the answer to that question essentially depends on whether, applying the familiar test laid down in Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990] 2 AC 605, 618, "the court considers it fair, just and reasonable that the law should impose a duty of a given scope upon the one party for the benefit of the other". 3. The courts below have concluded that in such a situation no dut...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. Duwayne Brooks, the respondent, was present when his friend Stephen Lawrence was abused and murdered in the most notorious racist killing which our country has ever known. He also was abused and attacked. However well this crime had been investigated by the police and however sensitively he had himself been treated by the police, the respondent would inevitably have been deeply traumatised by his experience on the night of the murder and in the days and weeks which followed. But unfortunately, as established by the public inquiry into the killing (The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny (1999) Cm 4262-I), the investigation was very badly conducted and the respondent himself was not treated as he should have been. He issued proceedings against the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police and a number of other parties, all but one of whom were police officers. 2. I am indebted to my noble and learned friend Lo...
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LORD STEYN My Lords, 1. I have read the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Rodger of Earlsferry. I am in complete agreement with it. I would also make the order which Lord Rodger proposes. LORD HUTTON My Lords, 2. The facts of this case and the course of the appellant's trial have been fully set out in the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Rodger of Earlsferry and I gratefully adopt his account. The procedure adopted at the trial whereby the judge conducted a voir dire to decide whether the confession was admissible before it was put in evidence before the jury and the police officers were subsequently cross-examined before the jury when allegations of oppressive conduct were put to them, was described and approved in 1972 in paragraph 67 of the Eleventh Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee (Cmnd 4991): "The fact that the judge has decided at the trial within the trial that the confession is admissible will not prevent the defence from cross-examining the wi...
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LORD STEYN My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading the opinions of my noble and learned friends Lord Hoffmann and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. For the reasons they have given I would dismiss the appeal. LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 2. Zain Hashmi is a little boy, now aged 6, who suffers from a serious genetic disorder called beta thalassaemia major. His bone marrow does not produce enough red blood cells and in consequence he is often very poorly and needs daily drugs and regular blood transfusions to keep him alive. But he could be restored to normal life by a transplant of stem cells from a tissue compatible donor. 3. The problem is to find compatible tissue which Zain's immune system will not reject. The chances of finding a compatible donor who is not a sibling are extremely low. Even in the case of siblings, the chances are only one in four. None of Zain's three elder siblings is compatible. In addition, the donor must be free of the same disorder. That lengthens the odd...
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LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinions of my noble and learned friends Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Carswell, with which I am in complete agreement. For the reasons they give, I also would dismiss this appeal. 2. As the number of reported cases on the topic makes clear, similar fact evidence has proved a contentious and uncertain area of the law, particularly in criminal cases but also in civil cases like that before the House. But such evidence may be very important, even decisive. It is undesirable that the subject should be shrouded in mystery. 3. Any evidence, to be admissible, must be relevant. Contested trials last long enough as it is without spending time on evidence which is irrelevant and cannot affect the outcome. Relevance must, and can only, be judged by reference to the issue which the court (whether judge or jury) is called upon to decide. As Lord Simon of Glaisdale observed in Director of Public Prose...
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LORD STEYN My Lords, 1. I have had the advantage of reading the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. I agree with it. For the reasons given by Lord Scott I would make the order which he proposes. LORD HOFFMANN My Lords, 2. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. For the reasons he gives, with which I agree, I would make the order which he proposes. LORD HUTTON My Lords, 3. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend Lord Scott of Foscote. I agree with it and for the reasons which he gives I would make the order which he proposes. LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE My Lords, The Issues 4. This appeal requires two issues to be decided. The first is a short point of construction of Condition 12 of the terms ("the Bond Terms") applicable to a Eurobond issue of _510 million 2 per cent bonds ('the Bonds') which fall due for payment in December 2005. The Bonds were iss...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD 1. I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech of my noble and learned friend Lord Hoffmann. For the reasons he gives, with which I agree, I would allow the appeals of the Secretary of State and dismiss the appeals of the widowers. 2. I add a note on one point, concerning the claims in respect of widow's payment and widowed mother's allowance under sections 36 and 37 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. The widowers' claim is that non-payment of corresponding amounts to them was unlawful discrimination. Non-payment of these amounts to them, it is said, violated their Convention right under article 14 read with article 1 of Protocol 1. Accordingly the Secretary of State's failure to make corresponding payments to widowers was unlawful under section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998. By failing to make such payments the Secretary of State acted incompatibly with the claimants' Convention right. 3. The Secretary of State's pr...
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LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD My Lords, 1. This appeal raises a question of profound importance about the human rights obligations of the United Kingdom in respect of the expulsion of people with HIV/AIDS. The appellant, a woman 30 years of age, comes from Uganda. She was born there in December 1974. She came to London on a flight from Entebbe in March 1998. She was refused leave to enter this country. Her claim for asylum was rejected. The Secretary of State proposes to expel her. But there is a tragic complication: she suffers from advanced HIV/AIDS ('full blown AIDS', in the old terminology). 2. When the appellant arrived here she was very poorly. Within hours she was admitted to Guy's Hospital. She was diagnosed as HIV positive, with an AIDS defining illness. In August 1998 she developed a second AIDS defining illness, Kaposi's sarcoma. The CD4 cell count of a normal healthy person is over 500. Hers was down to 10. 3. As a result of modern drugs and skilled medical treatment over a ...
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