R v Gough (Robert)

Parliamentary Archives,
HL/PO/JU/18/253

Regina

v.

Gough (Appellant)
(On Appeal from the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division))

JUDGMENT

Die Jovis 20° Maii 1993

Upon Report from the Appellate Committee to whom was
referred the Cause Regina against Gough, That the Committee had
heard Counsel as well on Wednesday the 27th as on Thursday the
28th days of January last upon the Petition and Appeal of Robert
Brian Gough, praying that the matter of the Order set forth in
the Schedule thereto, namely an Order of the Court of Appeal
(Criminal Division) of the 2nd day of June 1992, might be
reviewed before Her Majesty the Queen in Her Court of Parliament
and that the said Order might be reversed, varied or altered or
that the Petitioner might have such other relief in the premises
as to Her Majesty the Queen in Her Court of Parliament might seem
meet; as upon the case of the Director of Public Prosecutions (on
behalf of Her Majesty) lodged in answer to the said Appeal; and
due consideration had this day of what was offered on either side
in this Cause:

It is Ordered and Adjudged, by the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal in the Court of Parliament of Her Majesty the Queen
assembled, That the said Order of the Court of Appeal (Criminal
Division) of the 2nd day of June 1992 complained of in the said
Appeal be, and the same is hereby, Affirmed and that the said
Petition and Appeal be, and the same is hereby, dismissed this
House: And it is further Ordered. That the certified guestion
be answered in accordance with the principles set out in the
speech of the Lord Goff of Chieveley.

Cler: Parliamentor:

Judgment: 20 May 1993

HOUSE OF LORDS

REGINA

v.

GOUGH
(APPELLANT)

(ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF APPEAL)
(CRIMINAL DIVISION)

Lord Goff of Chieveley
Lord Ackner
Lord Mustill
Lord Slynn
Lord Woolf

LORD GOFF OF CHIEVELEY

On 25 April 1991, at Liverpool Crown Court, the appellant Robert
Brian Gough was convicted on an indictment containing a single count of
conspiracy to rob, and was sentenced to a term of 15 years imprisonment.

The indictment was based upon the commission of eight robberies in
Liverpool between 13 April 1989 and 6 March 1990. The first seven
robberies bore features of striking similarity. In all seven cases the premises
concerned were a betting shop; the robbery was committed by two masked
men, either at the beginning or at the end of the day; the men were armed,
one with a shotgun and the other with a knife; and the modus operandi was
similar. The prosecution contended that the first seven robberies had been
committed by the same two men, the appellant and his brother David Stephen
Gough. There was however insufficient evidence to link this brother with the
eighth robbery, and the evidence against him on the other seven was weak.
In the result, at the committal proceedings the prosecution applied for David
Stephen Gough to be discharged on…