R v Abdroikov

The House of Lords was asked to determine whether the presence of police officers and Crown Prosecution Service employees on criminal trial juries in England and Wales rendered a trial unfair, contrary to the appellants' rights to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court of Appeal had dismissed the appellants' appeals. The first appellant, Nurlon Abdroikof, had been convicted of attempted murder and theft. The jury included a police officer, a fact which did not emerge until late in the trial. The second appellant, Richard John Green, had been convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and having a bladed or pointed article. The jury included a police officer who had served in the same borough as the police witness and the appellant, but the officer and witness had not met. The third appellant, Kenneth Joseph Williamson, had been convicted of two counts of rape. The jury included a solicitor employed by the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Lords found that the fair-minded and informed observer would not necessarily conclude that the mere presence of a police officer or a Crown Prosecution Service employee on a jury would create such a possibility of bias as to deny the defendant a fair trial. The observer would consider the circumstances of the case, the issues to be decided, the background of the juror in question and the closeness of any connection which he or she might have to the case to be tried. The presence of a police officer or a Crown Prosecution Service employee on a jury was not in itself a sufficient basis to conclude that there was a real possibility that the jury was biased.

However, the appeal of the second appellant, Richard John Green, was allowed because of the closeness of the connection between the police officer on the jury and the police witness. The observer would consider that there was a real and possible source of unfairness, beyond the reach of standard judicial warnings and directions.

The appeal of the third appellant, Kenneth Joseph Williamson, was also allowed because the observer would consider that justice was not seen to be done if one discharging the very important neutral role of juror was a full-time, salaried, long-serving employee of the prosecutor. Williamson was entitled to be tried by a tribunal that was and appeared to be impartial, and in the opinion of the majority of the Lords he was not.

The appeal of the first appellant, Nurlon Abdroikof, was dismissed because the presence of the police officer on the jury did not turn on a contest between the evidence of the police and that of the appellant, and it would have been hard to suggest that the case was one in which unconscious prejudice, even if present, would have been likely to operate to the disadvantage of the appellant.