Vehicle and Operator Services Agency v George Jenkins Transport Ltd.

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Mr Justice Mackay will give the first judgment.

MR JUSTICE MACKAY: This is an appeal by way of case stated against a decision of the Isle of Wight Magistrates' Court (District Judge Morgan) dated 22nd April 2003. It is brought by the prosecutor, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency ("VOSA"), against her decision to rule as inadmissible certain documents which the prosecutor wished to put in evidence.

The prosecutor had preferred some 201 informations against the respondent company, George Jenkins Transport Ltd, and related charges against some 29 individual drivers who were its employees or former employees. Some idea of the prolixity of these informations can be seen from the fact that they cover 82 A4 pages of the case stated in single-space type.

Two categories of charge featured in this prosecution. The first was under section 97(1)(a)(iii) of the Transport Act 1968, alleging that vehicles had been used to which the section applied in which recording equipment was not used as provided by certain regulations; in that the driver had not used a tachograph sheet to record all his periods of work. In plainer English, it was alleging driving off tachograph for some portions of particular journeys or days. Secondly, there were charges under section 99 of the same Act, which alleged that drivers had driven their vehicles to which other regulations applied for hours which exceeded permitted hours and/or without the prescribed rest periods or breaks.

Therefore, in all the charges the prosecutor faced the task of proving, in relation to several hundred journeys and days of work, the hours for which individual drivers had actually worked, as well as the journeys they had covered, and then had to go on to prove that these were not properly recorded in accordance with the requirements of the Act and the regulations under it.

To discharge this burden, the prosecutor sought to put in evidence a number of drivers' time sheets. This was crucial evidence, without which the prosecutor had no case. The District Judge was asked to rule on the admissibility of these as a preliminary point. She ruled them inadmissible, and such was their importance that the prosecutor in consequence offered no evidence and all the charges against all defendants were dismissed.

This appeal by the prosecutor centres on the provisions of section 24 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which I should set out together with the two sections which follow it, so far as relevant. Section 24 reads:

Section 25, in its relevant parts, reads:

Finally section 26 should be set out, so far as is relevant:

Returning then to section 24, that raises at once in a case such as this two questions, so-called criteria or gateway provisions, which have to be satisfied before there is any question of admitting in evidence such documents as are involved in this appeal. Firstly, each time sheet must have been created or received by a person in the course of a trade or business; and secondly, the information contained in the document must have been supplied by a person, whether or not the maker, who had or might reasonably be supposed to have had personal knowledge of the matters dealt with. Both are matters which the prosecutor would need to prove to the criminal standard.

As to the first, having looked at an example of one of these documents, it seems to me to be plain that it is what it purports to be on its face; that is to say, a weekly record of some sort, purporting to record the hours driven by a particular driver on a particular vehicle, the trips he made, the mileages at which he refuelled and the amount of fuel he took on and, more particularly, the hours to which he worked each day.

As to the second criterion, the prosecutor argued below (and argues before us) that there was a plain and obvious inference that this criterion was met.

The way the case has been formulated for this court is not entirely satisfactory. It appears as though evidence was considered by the District Judge in the process of deciding this preliminary issue, in the sense that the disclosed prosecution evidence was treated for the purposes of the issue as having been given and having been correctly given. She records in the case that the time sheets were delivered to VOSA as a result of a request made to the respondent company under section 99(1) of the Transport Act 1968. Pursuant to that request, documents were provided by the respondents' solicitors. That was not the subject of any formal agreement, and therefore must have come from her perusal of the evidence.

It was indeed the case, from that evidence, that VOSA had exercised the powers that it had under section 99(1)(c) of the Transport Act 1968 by a request dated 25th July 2002, which demanded from the respondents, among other things:

There was evidence from a witness that these were received on 8th August 2002 and that, as this court can see for itself from a specimen sheet, each sheet bore the name of the driver of the vehicle, the defendant company and its address, the days of the week, the start and finish times of the driver and details of his refuelling and mileage.

In each case, again in pursuance of a request under section 99(1), a tachograph disc had also been provided by the respondent. Unlike the time sheets, section 97B of the 1968 Act states that such tachograph discs are evidence of the matters appearing on them. A comparison was made of the time sheets and tachograph discs and the evidence was, or would have been, that there was in each case a match between the time sheet and the relevant tachograph.

The respondent argued below and argues before this court that a pre-requisite of a document's admission as documentary hearsay under section 24 is that in each case each document must be produced and spoken to by a witness capable of proving it, and of proving the two necessary matters set out in section 24, including the personal knowledge of the maker or person supplying the information contained in it. In her decision, the District Judge resolved the argument in a way that is not entirely clear, but which I will set out in full. She said this:

It is not immediately clear to me whether only the last sentence of the passage I have quoted constitutes the entirety of the District Judge's decision on this preliminary point, or whether the whole passage is her decision with possibly the omission of the first sentence. I will assume the latter, which appears to me to be the more generous construction to be placed on this part of the decision.

Before returning to that question, I should deal with a second and separate point. The respondent had also argued below that the prosecution could not prove and had not proved by evidence continuity of the time sheets produced, namely who had received them, who had held them, where they had been kept, between the time when they were produced, which on the evidence was 8th August 2002, and their purported introduction at the hearing.

The District Judge ruled against that. She said that it would be an extraordinary coincidence if, after having requested specific documents, documents of the same character referring to the same company, driver and vehicle on the same date were later received and were not in fact the authentic documents. As she put it:

Today, on behalf of the respondent, Mr Laprell argues a further or different point that there might have been omissions, in the sense that the prosecutor might have lost some of the time sheets with which it had been supplied in that intervening period, and therefore the picture was incomplete and unreliable. For my part, I would favour applying the same common sense about the matter that the District Judge brought to bear on the argument in this respect as presented to her. There seems to me therefore to be nothing in this separate point. I return to the essential point, as to whether some form of direct evidence by way of proof of the documents under section 24 is a precondition to their admission.

In the case of the R v Foxley [1995] 2 Cr App R 523, there would appear to be binding authority of the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, on this point. That case involved allegations of corruption against a government official whose job included the placing of contracts for the supply of ammunition. It was said against him that three foreign suppliers made payments into three intermediary banks, in which were numbered accounts, and that these payments corresponded to corrupt contracts. It was also said that the appellant was the beneficiary under those accounts.

The prosecution case was almost entirely based on documentary evidence which had been obtained through "lettre rogatoires". None of the documents were the appellant's own, nor had they even been through his hands or passed in front of him at any stage. The appellant argued that no witness had been called to speak to the documents and as to their purpose or the personal knowledge of the maker, nor their provenance, nor their continuity. The appellant's argument was recorded by Roch LJ at page 535 in this way:

Having set out that question, the learned Lord Justice went on as follows:

He continued later:

I find the reasoning of the court in Foxley compelling. The passage of section 24(1(b)(ii) referred to plainly envisages a process of judgment by inference as being potentially one of the methods to be used by the court in its decision. Furthermore, section 25(2)(d) again plainly envisages circumstances in which the maker of the document may not attend court to give evidence. There are many circumstances -- and this case stands in my judgment as an example -- in which the construction contended for by the respondent below and in this court would administer at the very least a serious setback to Parliament's evident intention to widen the court's powers to admit documentary hearsay, subject to proper safeguards for the accused.

Mr Laprell to support his argument has referred us to the case of Case [1991] Crim LR 192. This, it has to be noted, was a decision under section 23(1) and (2) not section 24, and was to the effect that where there existed a statement by a witness who was said to be overseas, and therefore said to meet the criterion at section 23(2)(b)(i), and the prosecutor sought to introduce that statement to prove the criterion to the court's satisfaction, the contents of the statement could not themselves be used as evidence of fact to prove that the requirement was met. This case was, we note, cited in Foxley, in which the Court of Appeal was clearly minded to distinguish between the methods by which the criterion might be met under the two different sections.

Subsequently, Foxley has plainly been followed by another constitution of the Court of Appeal in R v Ilyas and Knight [1996] Crim LR 810. In that case at issue was the admission under section 24 of a diary found in certain commercial premises. The court said this:

In my judgment, the court is plainly entitled, and in an appropriate case bound, to look at the face of the document which it is being asked to allow into evidence under section 24 to answer both of the qualifying conditions. If that is done in this case, only one conclusion can follow from the circumstances in which these documents were obtained by the prosecutor, and from their appearance on their face, without at this stage having to treat as true the statements which they contained. The very look of them answers, in my judgment, both questions and the fit with other documents which are admissible and self-proving in evidence.

These were plainly documents, in my judgment, which met both section 24 criteria. The question posed in the case stated therefore should be answered in the negative.

That only leaves as an issue whether this matter should go back to the court below for a continued hearing. If they are admitted, the terms of section 25(2) (which I have set out above) will give full scope to the defendant to test the strength and reliability or other factors that are there mentioned relating to the document, and will impose a duty on the court to have regard to anything which may result in unfairness to the accused. Mr Laprell argues that the court is bound, by virtue of Article 6 of the European Convention, to look with the greatest of care at any provision which admits evidence which may well be decisive, or at all events highly influential, on a hearsay basis which will by definition reduce the ability and power of the defendant to test that evidence and meet it. He cites Luca v Italy 36 EHRR 46 as authority for the proposition that where what amounts to the only evidence against an accused person is introduced on a hearsay basis, such a provision will be or may be breached.

This question was addressed in the Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, in R v M [2003] 2 Cr App R 322, where it was held that there was no invariable rule that a conviction might be based solely or even to a decisive degree on the statement of a witness that the accused had no opportunity to examine, either during the investigation or during the trial itself. In that case the vital witness evidence had been introduced under section 23, the witness saying he was in fear.

These are, I should remind myself, documents emanating from the respondent itself, not from some outside source. To the extent that they are or may be unreliable or open to challenge, the respondent of all people will be in the best position to do that. I say nothing as to how that discretion should be exercised by the court when it reconsiders this matter, and it should be left to that court's judgment when it approaches its task afresh.

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: I agree. Professor Smith was critical of the decision in Foxley in the note which he wrote in the Criminal Law Review, on the grounds that he considered that the documents which were in issue in that case were admissible without reference to section 24(1). But in a note which he wrote in the same publication in relation to Ilyas and Knight he said, at [1996] Crim LR 812:

I would also wish to underline what has been said by my Lord about the desirability of a case stated being properly set out, even when it relates to a preliminary ruling. I make four points. First, the case stated does not need to set out the details of informations where, for the purposes of the ruling, nothing turns on the differences between them. The details of one or two informations will suffice.

Secondly, it should set out the facts as found or accepted for the purposes of the ruling with reference to any relevant documents, such as in the present case the request for the time sheets and the response thereto.

Thirdly, it should then set out in summary form the submissions made on each side.

Finally, fourthly, it should set out the court's conclusion on the matters in issue and the question for the consideration of this court.

If that is done, this court has a sure foundation from which to proceed. Where advocates appear in the Magistrates' Court, there is no reason why the court, if minded to state a case, should not invite the advocates for the parties to submit a first draft, indicating any areas of disagreement. But one way or another it is important that by the time that the case stated is signed it is in a satisfactory form.

MR NESBITT: My Lords, the prosecution has therefore won the appeal and we would therefore apply for the costs of this appeal against the defendant as well as the costs of the hearing below.

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: I do not see how you can resist either leg of that application, can you Mr Laprell?

MR LAPRELL: My Lord, the only way in which I can resist that is in this way. As in one of the cases -- and I can not remember which one it is -- it was effectively said there: "To a degree the prosecution have brought this on themselves by the way in which the case was presented in the lower courts," and the appropriate way of dealing with it is to say that the costs should either be each party should bear their own or alternatively that they be dealt with -- and I appreciate probably the latter -- dealt with by the judge at the end of the day when she makes her ultimate findings as to whether this defendant is acquitted or convicted.

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: You may have your order as sought. Thank you both for attending. Thank you both for your attendance.

MR NESBITT: My Lord's indication in relation to costs --

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: I said as you sought. In other words, you may have your costs here and below.

MR LAPRELL: I am just checking that that is for this hearing and the hearing below?

LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: And below. In relation of course to this issue, not in relation to what may happen hereafter. Thank you very much.