Street identification - failure to comply with mandatory requirement for parade where defendant consented and disputed identification - admission of evidence of street identification not rendering trial unfair or conviction unsafeR v Forbes: HL (Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Cook ofThorndon and Lord Hutton):14 December 2000The complainant, on making a cash withdrawal from a cashpoint, was confronted by an assailant.

He evaded the man and returned to a car driven by his friend from which he saw the man.

Subsequently the police drove him round the streets until he saw and identified the defendant as his assailant.

The defendant denied the accusation and repeatedly sought an identification parade.

No parade was held and at trial he sought the exclusion of the identification evidence under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence 1984.

The judge admitted the evidence and the defendant was convicted.

The Court of Appeal [1999] Gazette 26 May; [1999] 2 CrAppR 501 dismissed his appeal.

The defendant appealed.Robin Purchas QC and Sherry Nabijou (instructed by Sternberg Reed Taylor & Gill, Barking) for the defendant.

David Perry and Piers Wauchope (instructed by Crown Prosecution Service) for the Crown.Held, dismissing the appeal, that paragraph 2.3 of PACE Code D imposed a mandatory duty on police officers, except in limited specified circumstances, to hold a parade whenever the suspect disputed an identification and consented to its being held; that that duty was not displaced by prior unequivocal identification and there had therefore been a breach of the code; that any infringement of the defendant's right to a fair trial under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights was to be assessed in the context of the whole proceedings and, where established, would render the conviction unsafe under section 2 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968; but that since there had been two untainted and compelling identifications of the defendant the complainant's evidence had been rightly admitted and the judge's failure to direct the jury on a breach of code D, although irregular, could not have affected the jury's verdict so as to render the trial unfair or the conviction unsafe.