[2013] EWCA Crim 1011

A good character direction was an essential component of a summing-up when the jury was considering evidence of dishonesty, particularly where it related to a man of middle years with no convictions. In the instant case, a conviction under the Social Security Administration Act 1992 s.111A(1A) was quashed where no good character direction had been given to the jury owing to reliance on an adverse police national computer antecedent report relating not to the offender but to an individual with the same name and date of birth as him.

CA (Crim Div) (Pitchford LJ, Griffith Williams J, Judge Ford QC (Recorder of Bristol))

05/06/2013