Alan Peter Humphrey v. Her Majesty’s Advocate [2016] HCJAC 5

Note of appeal against conviction:- On 21 October 2014, at Glasgow High Court, the appellant was convicted after trial of a charge of murder. A number of charges had been withdrawn by the Crown prior to the end of the trial, 4 of which related to allegations of assault perpetrated against the deceased by the appellant. The appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment with a punishment part of 19 years. The appellant appealed against his conviction on the grounds of alleged misdirections by the trial judge. The appellant represented himself at the appeal following unsuccessful attempts to obtain representation. Previously instructed counsel had lodged a Case and Argument and that formed the basis of the appellant’s appeal here. Generally, the contention was that the trial judge gave more emphasis to the Crown case than the defence case and a number of implied criticisms had been made of the defence case and some of the unanswered Crown evidence by the trial judge all of which, cumulatively, resulted in the appearance of being unbalanced. Here the court refused the appeal having considered the evidence in the case and the content of the trial judge’s charge. The court described the charge as “exemplar for use in a murder case of this type”, namely a case in which the defence simply sought to challenge and test the Crown evidence led rather than leading a positive line of defence on behalf of the appellant. The court considered that a number of the criticisms were easily countered when each was placed in its proper context and when read along with the remainder of the charge. Given the length of the trial (18 days) the trial judge could not be criticised for providing a short summary of the evidence and as a whole the charge was balanced and fair even providing directions to the jury in relation to culpable homicide, notwithstanding the savage nature of the attack. The court did express concern regarding what it described as the flimsy grounds of appeal and to these not being identified and refused at the sifting stage.