R v Johnson CA17/00

The appeal is from a conviction of murder of Stavros Stavrianos, for which Ian Douglas Johnson was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr Johnson appealed on two grounds, neither of which had been raised in the notice of appeal: (a) a miscarriage of justice as a result of Mr Johnson's trial counsel's incompetence, and (b) that the jury's verdict was unreasonable or unsupportable having regard to the evidence. Trial counsel incompetence arose as the main ground of appeal for the first time on 14 July 2004. The appellant alleged that he had instructed trial counsel that the defence was to be that he was an accessory after the fact but not a murderer, but trial counsel had run a defence that he had murdered Mr Stavrianos. This was a late development in the proceedings and was inconsistent with other evidence given by Mr Johnson in the various stages of the appeal process. The appellant's allegations were baseless. The appellant had instructed trial counsel to run a defence that he had stumbled across the body, panicked, cleaned up, and disposed of the body. The defence was run accordingly, and the appellant had signed a document confirming that he approved the contents of the final address. There was no merit in the appellant's complaints about trial counsel's failure to call witnesses, failure to advise on the effect of consenting to some Crown briefs of evidence being read, and failure to cross-examine Crown witnesses. The second ground of appeal was that the verdict was unreasonable. The appellant submitted that the evidence was consistent with his being an accessory after the fact. However, the appellant had repudiated the defence theory on oath. Even without that contradiction, the evidence was overwhelming that Mr Johnson was guilty of murder. The appeal was dismissed.