R v Grant
Deliberate interference by the police with a suspect's right to confidential legal advice, by covertly recording conversations with his solicitor, was so serious that the prosecution should have been stayed as an abuse of process.
Facts
Mr Grant was charged with conspiracy to murder. While he was in custody at a police station, the police deliberately and covertly recorded conversations between him and his solicitor in the exercise yard. The recordings did not produce any evidence used at the trial. He applied for the proceedings to be stayed as an abuse of process, but the judge refused, and he was convicted.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction. Laws LJ said that the deliberate interference by the police with a detained suspect's right to the confidence of privileged communications with his solicitor, which was a right of fundamental importance, was in principle so great an affront to the integrity of the justice system, and therefore the rule of law, that the prosecution was rendered abusive. It did not matter that no evidence had been obtained or used as a result. The court should not allow the state to benefit from such conduct, even in the prosecution of a serious crime. The Privy Council later suggested, in Warren v Attorney General for Jersey, that Grant went too far in treating a stay as inevitable in such cases without regard to the circumstances.
Related cases on silence, confessions and improperly obtained evidence
- A v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) [2005] UKHL 71, [2006] 2 AC 221
- Condron v United Kingdom (2001) 31 EHRR 1
- Gäfgen v Germany (2011) 52 EHRR 1
- Murray v United Kingdom (1996) 22 EHRR 29
- R v Argent [1997] 2 Cr App R 27
- R v Cowan [1996] QB 373
- R v Fulling [1987] QB 426
- R v Keenan [1990] 2 QB 54
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This summary is for study and revision and is not legal advice. Although our case summaries are checked for accuracy, we do not guarantee that they are free from errors or omissions. Always read the full judgment for the court's reasoning.
