202401229 B2 - [2025] EWCA Crim 945

There is no longer any documentary evidence of the circumstances surrounding the Applicant’s guilty plea in 2006. The Applicant himself has some limited memory. On 1 June 2006 the Applicant was represented by a barrister who has since died. The barrister who represented him when he was sentenced on 30 June has no recollection of the case. The solicitor’s firm who acted for him no longer exists. No transcript of the sentencing hearing is available.

The Applicant’s evidence at the manslaughter trial was that his memory of the court proceedings was not too clear because he had “tried to block a lot of stuff out”. He said that he had met his solicitor at her office before he went to Court on an occasion before 1 June 2006. When he went to Court on that date he thought that he would be pleading not guilty. He then met his solicitor outside Court and she advised him to plead guilty as there was a lot of medical evidence stacked against him. He was told that if he pleaded guilty and went to trial he would be found guilty and imprisoned for five to six years. That he would be wasting everyone’s time and money. On the other hand, if he pleaded guilty he would get nine to twelve months. He therefore pleaded guilty. The Applicant said that he did not speak to his partner before he pleaded guilty and that the discussion was only ten minutes before he went into Court. He could not recall any conversation with a male barrister on that occasion. He did not remember the case being adjourned for sentence but thought that he was sentenced on the same day. In cross-examination he said that he was told that he did not have a chance because of the medical evidence. He agreed that it was his decision to plead guilty. He denied that he pleaded guilty because he was guilty; he said that he pleaded guilty to something he did not do to get less jail time and get back to his family. When the statutory maximum for a s. 20 offence was put to him and it was suggested that no lawyer would have advised him that he would get five to six years on a not guilty plea were he to be convicted, the Applicant said that he did not know and that he was not educated in the law.