202303262 B1 - [2025] EWCA Crim 1163

The judge’s rulings: 1 - the applicant’s previous convictions:

Five days before the trial, the prosecution applied to adduce the March 2021 convictions as evidence that the applicant had a propensity to commit offences of a similar nature to those of which he was accused.

The defence opposed the application, on the grounds that:

no adequate explanation had been given for the late notice of the application.

the March 2021 guilty pleas were unreliable: no consideration had been given at that time to the applicant’s fitness to plead, but the nature of his severe neurodevelopmental disorders is such that he was likely to have been unfit to plead.

the defence could not adduce evidence as to the context of those guilty pleas.

if the prosecution evidence were adduced, it may cause the jury to doubt whether the applicant really was unfit to plead in the present proceedings.

a single conviction was unlikely to be capable of demonstrating a propensity.

bad character evidence should not be admitted to bolster a weak case.

The judge rejected those submissions. She noted that no application had been made to vacate the guilty pleas which resulted in the March 2021 convictions, and ruled that those convictions were capable of demonstrating a propensity to commit offences of a similar nature. The judge added that:

“The surrounding circumstances of the guilty pleas can also be admitted in evidence so that the jury are able to judge them in the light of it and ignore them if they are unsure of them.”