Criminal

Appeal against conviction on reference by CCRC - absence of time limit - effect of retrospectivityR v Kansal: CA (Rose LJ, Rougier and McCombe JJ): 25 May 2001In February 1992 the appellant was convicted of two counts of obtaining property by deception, contrary to section 15(1) of the Theft Act 1968, one count of, being a bankrupt, removing property contrary to section 354(2) of the Insolvency Act 1986 and one count of, being a bankrupt, failing to account for property contrary to section 354(3) of the 1986 Act.His appeal against conviction was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission on the grounds that, among other things, the convictions on the first two counts were not safe in the light of R v Preddy [1996] AC 815, and that the trial judge was wrong to allow the admission in evidence of the transcript of his examination at the bankruptcy proceedings in the light of Saunders v United Kingdom (1997) 23 EHRR 313.Ivan Krolick and Anita Geser (instructed by Campbell Chambers) for the appellant; John McGuinness QC (instructed by Lal Norbatt, Department of Trade and Industry) for the Crown.Held, allowing the appeal, that subject to the proper exercise of the discretion conferred by section 9 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, the CCRC could refer to the Court of Appeal a conviction following a trial whenever it had taken place; that once such a reference had been made, the Court of Appeal had no option, however old the case, but to declare the conviction unsafe if that was the result either of the admission of evidence in breach of article 6 or of a change in the common law, which was deemed always to have been that which it was authoritatively declared to be; and that, accordingly, as the law now stood the answers that the appellant was obliged to give in his examination by the Official Receiver were wrongly admitted before the jury.