No Case to Answer

Occasionally a defendant is acquitted of an offence without even needing to offer a defence.

This might happen, for example, if the prosecution has been unable to prove all the elements of the offence of which they are accused. No case to answer, as it is called, is not particularly common. It only arises if there has been serious oversight on the part of the prosecution.

One such case appeared before the court recently. The defendant, who had been bailed to attend for trial but had failed to do so, was accused of possession of a bladed article.

Possession of a bladed article is an offence under section 139(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The offence, which is triable either way, has a maximum penalty of 6 months' custody on summary conviction; 4 years' custody on conviction on indictment.

A person is guilty of an offence if the following elements are satisfied:

• That they had in their possession, in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed;
• That the item in question is not a folding pocket knife with a blade of less than 3 inches;
• That they did not have a good reason or lawful authority to have the item in their possession.

The legislation gives the following defence:

• That the person can prove that they had the item in their possession for the purposes of work, for religious reasons or as part of a national costume.

Enquiries revealed that the defendant in this case was at the other end of the country, having reported for police bail in relation to another matter just hours earlier. We were satisfied that they had been notified of the requirement to attend for trial, but accepted that their newer police bail conditions might have been a factor in their non-attendance. We decided to proceed with the trial in their absence.

The prosecutor outlined the circumstances of the alleged offence. The gist of it was that two police officers had heard some sort of disturbance in city centre alleyway. They had approached to investigate and became separated. Concerned about the welfare of his colleague, the officer who was with the defendant left them alone for a few moments. The officer then returned to the area the defendant had been stood. A quick search of that area yielded a kitchen knife.

The prosecutor then called the officer in question, who repeated the account under oath in the witness box. It must be said that we were not particularly impressed by the account that the officer was giving us - in particular the clear gaps in the evidential chain of custody.

That was the prosecution case.

The defence advocate then took to his feet and made a submission that there was no case to answer. By his own admission the officer had not seen the defendant with the bladed article and was not present when the item may or may not have been secreted. That being the case the first element of the offence - that the defendant had the bladed article in their possession - had not been satisfied to the required standard and therefore there was no case to answer.

As is often the case, I think the three of us on the bench had already made our minds up by this stage. We retired for a few minutes to confirm our joint view that the case was pretty weak and that the prosecution had failed to prove the possession element beyond reasonable doubt.

We returned to the courtroom to announce that we were in agreement with the defence submission that there was no case to answer. That being the case, the charge against the defendant was dismissed.