Ali v Reginam [1974] FJCA 1; Criminal Appeal No 62 of 1973 (1 March 1974)

Fiji Islands - Ali, Edward v Reginam - Pacific Law Materials

IN THE FIJI COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Appeal No. 62 of 1973

BETWEEN:

pan lang=EN-GB style=mso-ansi-language:EN-GB>EDWARD SHEIKH EIKH FARUK ALI
Appellant

AND:

REGINAM
Respondent

Mr Kermode, R.G.Q. for the Appellant
Mr Williams, D for the Respondent

Date of Hearing: 4^th March, 1974
Delivery of Judgment:

JUDGMENT OF COURT

Haslam, J.A.

This is an appeal against conviction and sentence in the Supreme Court at Suva on 31 October, 1973. The appellant was charged under Section 269 of the Penal Code with causing death by driving of a motor vehicle on Kings Road in a manner which was dangerous to the public. He was tried before a Judge and three assessors, each of whom after the summing up stated his opinion that the appellant was guilty. The learned Judge invoked the amendment to Section 281 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and after stating that he could “find no ground to differ”, pronounced the appellant guilty and convicted him without further comment. Later that day he sentenced the appellant to 18 months imprisonment, and disqualified him from holding a driving licence for 15 years.

The prosecution called three witnesses to depose to having seen the appellant conducting hazardous manoeuvres along King’s Road shortly before this accident – the furthest of such incidents occurring about 4 miles from the scene and only a few minutes before this collision. The appellant complained that as the crux of the alleged offence was his manner of driving at the vital moment before impact, this evidence was both prejudicial and irrelevant. He submitted that as, at least by inference, he must be regarded as having reduced his pace after each of these episodes, any earlier displays of indifference by him to the safety of other road users could have had no causative connexion with the death of Ram Dulari.

In this instance we regarded the material under attack as both admissible and relevant. It tended to show tended to show appellant’s continued attitude of ignoring the peril to which his reckless handling of his vehicle could subject other persons, and links his pattern of performance with his final failure to negotiate that slight curve. There is ample precedent for such testimony being received.

(R. v. Taylor 1927 20 CAR 71; R. v. Burdon 1927 20 CAR 80; Hallett v. Warren 1926 93 JP 225; R v Buchanan 1965 V.R. 9).

Clearly testimony of this kind must be of diminishing cogency in proportion to the separation of time and distance from the collision under review. If a Court considered that the probative value of this class of evidence were so slight that unsafe inferences might be drawn therefrom, the inherent power to reject the prejudicial material would be exercised, even where its legal admissibility might be safe from challenge (R v Christie [1914] UKLawRpAC 20; 1914 A.C. 545 at 559). No doubt the authorities in charge of prosecutions will be vigilant to ensure that an oppressive use of his form of proof is not invoked merely because no exclusionary rule of law precludes its being tendered.

The appeal against conviction is therefore dismissed.

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