Jersey Unreported Judgments

[2006]JCA126

COURT OF APPEAL

 

11^th September 2006

Before     :

The Hon Michael Beloff, Q.C., President; Sir Charles Mantell, P.C.; and K. S. Rokison, Esq., Q.C.

Robert John Ingram Moon

-v-

The Attorney General

Application for leave to appeal against a conviction by the Assize Court on 28th February, 2006 on the following charges:

3 counts of:

Supplying a controlled drug contrary to Article 5(b) of the Misuse of Drugs (Jersey) Law, 1978.

M. T. Jowitt Esq., Crown Advocate.

Advocate S. M. Baker for the Appellant.

JUDGMENT

mantell:

1.        Earlier this year Robert John Ingram Moon stood trial on an indictment containing three counts, each of which charged him with supplying a controlled drug, namely ecstasy.  On the 30^th of June he was convicted on the first of the three counts and acquitted on the others.  He now appeals against his conviction on grounds alleging errors of law, and seeks leave to appeal on further grounds depending upon alleged errors of mixed law and fact.  Insofar as it is necessary we grant leave. 

2.        Further to that we say at once that we propose to allow the appeal and quash the conviction.  Very few words of explanation are necessary.

3.         On the 25^th of October 2005 a man called Gilbertson was arrested sitting in a motor car outside an address at Patier Lodge, Patier Road, St Saviour.  That happened to be the address of Moon's girlfriend.  Gilbertson was also with his girlfriend.  When he was arrested he was found to have just short of £2,000 in cash, for the most part folded into bundles of £100.  He was also in possession of a list of names and numbers which he accepted was a dealing list.  He told the Police he was going to the bank.  He had attempted to telephone Moon earlier that morning and it does seem that he had been attempting to telephone Moon from the car.

4.        The house of Moon's girlfriend was searched.  Moon was arrested and found to have about £800 in cash in his pocket, again folded into bundles of £100.  Gilbertson was to say in the course of interview that he was indeed a retailer of drugs, including ecstasy, and that his supplier or wholesaler had been Moon.  It was on that basis that Moon came to be charged with the three offences to which we have made reference.  They were all ecstasy charges and they arose out of an allegation by Gilbertson that he had obtained drugs from Moon on many occasions.

5.        At trial, although Moon did not give evidence, he was to have his case put forward as a mirror image of that advanced on behalf of Gilbertson, namely, that Gilbertson had been supplying him.  That, of course, affected the seriousness of the offences to which he was admitting.  In the event the Jurats acquitted on two counts and convicted on the third.  It was originally suggested that there was a distinction to be made and that there was some corroboration of Gilbertson in the fact that he had been sitting in his car outside an address at which Moon was visiting and there had been telephone calls emanating from Moon.   That affords the basis of one of the earlier grounds of appeal not advanced in argument and it is not necessary for this Court to say more about it.

6.        Today the Attorney General, through Counsel, has not opposed either the application for leave to appeal or the appeal itself because it is now accepted that there was material in the possession of the Crown which ought to have been disclosed prior to trial.  Again it is not necessary to dwell upon the detail of that further information.  In broadest outline it involved a prior association between Gilbertson and an uncle who was believed to have been dealing commercially with drugs and it is now accepted, on behalf of the Attorney General, that had that material been in the hands of Counsel acting on behalf of Moon at trial it might have been deployed to advantage in cross examination.  Given that and other weaknesses in the Prosecution case it is also accepted that had that information been disclosed when it ought to have been disclosed the result may have been a different one and in those circumstances the Attorney General, very properly in the view of this Court, does not oppose the appeal as now advanced.  Hence the conclusion at which we have arrived. 

7.        We would only wish to say this, here, as the explanation given is accepted, it appears that the material was not disclosed through a misjudgement on the part of the Police handling it.  And even when it did eventually arrive in the Attorney General's State Chambers for further consideration its full impact was not appreciated.  It does seem to this Court that greater care ought to be taken over the evaluation of material which may prove important in a serious criminal trial such as this one.  That is all we propose to say on the matter.  We reiterate that which was stated at the beginning of this judgment; this appeal is allowed and the conviction quashed.

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