News In Focus
13 May 2005
Attempt to modify guilty plea fails
An accused who pled guilty to a serious assault has failed in his attempt to restrict his plea after important deletions from the charge were made during the trial of his co-accused.
The criminal appeal court has refused an appeal by Graham Reedie, who pled guilty to breaking into the house of an elderly couple in Glasgow and assaulting them with a knife, to their severe injury, permanent disfigurement and permanent impairment, all with intent to rob them.
Reedie's co-accused, Jamie Kerr, went to trial in the course of which the Crown restricted the allegation of assault to simple injury. Kerr was convicted of the charge in that form.
Reedie, who had tendered his plea on the understanding, accepted by the Crown, that he had not wielded the knife, attempted to withdraw the plea. In a letter the procurator fiscal raised no objection to this, but in court the Crown argued, and the sheriff accepted, that the motion was incompetent.
On appeal Reedie argued that, having written the letter, the Crown could not oppose his move. The court however ruled that as the proceedings against Reedie had concluded, the Crown was no longer in control of them, and cases dealing with concessions by the Crown prior to trial did not apply.
Lord Justice Clerk Gill, speaking for the court, went on to hold that Reedie's plea constituted "a full admission of the libel in all of its particulars". He continued: "It is not a conditional admission that is subject to reconsideration in the light of a subsequent decision of the court... nor, in our view, in the light of a subsequent verdict in the trial of another party on the same charge. In view of the conclusive nature of such a plea, it can be withdrawn only in exceptional circumstances... There is little scope, if any, for the withdrawal of a plea that has been tendered on legal advice and with the admitted authority of the accused".
It was illogical, he said, to argue that if an accused person was convicted of a charge in particular terms, any person who was art and part with that accused could not be convicted of the same charge in any more extensive terms. "If sound, it would mean that if Kerr had been acquitted, the appellant would have been entitled to withdraw his plea in its entirety." The procurator fiscal's decision to restrict the indictment at trial "merely reflected her assessment of the best verdict that she could achieve on the evidence led".
Lord Gill concluded: "The court must proceed, in our view, on the principle that an accused who pleads guilty as libelled to a crime does so because he committed it."
The court's opinion can be read at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2005HCJAC55.html .