R v. Abdroikof & Anor

These three appellants were tried on indictment in different courts on unrelated charges and were convicted. In the first two cases the trial jury included among its members a serving police officer, and in the third case it included a solicitor employed by the Crown Prosecuting Service. The common question raised by these three conjoined appeals is whether a fair-minded and informed observer, on the facts of the three cases, would conclude that there was a real possibility that the trial jury was biased.

The Court of Appeal (Lord Woolf CJ, Richards and Henriques JJ) which also heard the appeals together, held that the observer would not so conclude: [2005] EWCA Crim 1986, [2005] 1 WLR 3538. The appellants challenge that ruling.

The first appellant, Nurlon Abdroikof, faced counts of theft (to which he pleaded guilty) and attempted murder (to which he pleaded not guilty, but of which he was convicted). The trial last for six days in August 2004 before the Common Serjeant of London at the Central Criminal Court. There was a minor issue concerning one aspect of the evidence of a police witness. On Friday 27 August, when the jury were in retirement considering their verdicts, the foreman of the jury sent a note to the judge revealing that he was a serving police officer. He was concerned that if required to report for duty at the Notting Hill Carnival on the following Bank Holiday Monday, when the court was not sitting, he might meet one or more police officers who had been called to give evidence at the trial. With the acquiescence of defending counsel, who had not previously known of the foreman's occupation, the juror was directed not to report for duty on the Monday.

The second appellant, Richard John Green, was stopped by police officers on 18 March 2004. He was searched by one of the officers, Sergeant Burgess, and in the course of the search the sergeant put his hand into the appellant's pocket and pricked his finger on a used syringe. The appellant was charged with offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and having a bladed or pointed article. He pleaded not guilty and was tried before His Honour Judge Statman and a jury at Woolwich Crown Court. There was a dispute on the evidence between him and the police sergeant concerning the manner in which he was searched and what he and the sergeant respectively said. The appellant was convicted and sentenced. Some time after the trial, by chance, the appellant's solicitor discovered that a police officer, PC Mason, had been a member of the trial jury, a fact not known to the appellant at the time. PC Mason was at the time posted to Eltham Police Station, within an Operational Command Unit which committed its work to Woolwich Crown Court. PC Mason and Sergeant Burgess were both serving in the same borough at the time of the incident and had once served in the same police station at…

CaseChat Overview and Summary