Lexploria

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application No. 28772/95

by Keith HALL

against the United Kingdom

The European Commission of Human Rights (First Chamber) sitting

in private on 23 October 1997, the following members being present:

Mrs J. LIDDY, President

MM M.P. PELLONPÄÄ

E. BUSUTTIL

A. WEITZEL

C.L. ROZAKIS

L. LOUCAIDES

B. MARXER

B. CONFORTI

N. BRATZA

I. BÉKÉS

G. RESS

A. PERENIC

C. BÎRSAN

K. HERNDL

M. VILA AMIGÓ

Mrs M. HION

Mr R. NICOLINI

Mrs M.F. BUQUICCHIO, Secretary to the Chamber

Having regard to Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection

of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms;

Having regard to the application introduced on 6 May 1995 by

Keith HALL against the United Kingdom and registered on 27 September

1995 under file No. 28772/95;

Having regard to:

- the reports provided for in Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure of

the Commission;

- the information submitted by the respondent Government on

30 January 1997 and the reply received from the applicant on

26 March 1997;

Having deliberated;

Decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicant is a British citizen born in 1955. He lives in

Leeds. The facts of the application, as submitted by the parties, may

be summarised as follows.

A. Particular circumstances of the case

On 10 March 1994 the applicant was acquitted by the Leeds Crown

Court of the murder of his wife. The trial judge had refused to let

the only evidence in the case - tape recorded conversations the

applicant had had with an undercover woman police officer - be put to

the jury, and had directed an acquittal. On the same day, the judge

permitted the tapes to be used outside the court.

On 16 March 1994 the coroner for West Yorkshire wrote to the Home

Secretary asking for advice concerning the holding of an inquest into

the death of Mrs Hall. The coroner's letter began:

"I am able to state that I am definitely of the opinion that

[Mrs Hall] was murdered by her husband at a location within my

jurisdiction, and that her body has been deliberately destroyed

by burning and therefore cannot be recovered."

The letter continued to explain that the coroner considered an

inquest to be necessary because the death could then be formally

established, and the immediate family would be able to accept the death

as a fact. The coroner considered that the tapes of the conversations

the applicant had had could be used in the inquest proceedings.

The Home Office replied to the coroner on 22 July 1994. The

request for an inquest was declined on the ground that it would be

intolerable if the findings of an inquest were to be inconsistent with

the acquittal of the applicant.

The coroner wrote a further letter to the Home Office in which

he stated that a verdict at an inquest of "killed unlawfully" or an

"open" verdict would not conflict with the Crown Court verdict in the

applicant's case. In October 1994, after Mrs Hall's sister's solicitor

had written to the Home Office to support the coroner's request, the

Home Office asked the coroner to indicate what evidence existed that

a death had occurred other than the taped confession. The coroner

replied, enclosing a detailed report from a senior police officer into

the apparent death.

On 2 February 1995 the Home Office informed the coroner that the

Secretary of State had had regard to the practical difficulties facing

Mrs Hall's family, but had come to the conclusion that it would not be

desirable to direct an inquest in the case. He continued:

"The consequence of not holding an inquest (namely the practical

difficulty referred to above) does not in the opinion of the

Secretary of State outweigh what he considers to be the general

undesirability, and potential for unfairness, of an acquitted

defendant being subjected to a second judicial process in

circumstances where all the issues have already been ventilated

in a trial lasting nine days".

On the same day, in reply to a parliamentary question, the

Undersecretary of State for the Home Department made a statement in

Parliament to the same effect as the letter. It was pointed out in this

reply that although a verdict of an inquest of unlawful killing would

not be inconsistent with an acquittal in criminal trial in every case,

such a verdict in the instant case could contemplate no one but the

applicant. The practical difficulties facing Mrs Hall's family in there

being no official pronouncement of her death were outweighed by the

general undesirability of directing an inquest in the circumstances of

the present case.

Mrs Hall's sister applied for judicial review of the letter of

2 February 1995.

In his judgment of 14 December 1995, Mr Justice May set out the

facts of the case, and then gave an outline of the relevant provisions

on coroners and inquests (see below, Relevant Domestic Law). He was

of the opinion that the Secretary of State had not declined the inquest

because there was no certainty that Mrs Hall was dead, but because, as

a matter of discretion, it was preferable not to direct an inquest.

He considered that the substance of the Secretary of State's decision

"was that it was ... undesirable that there should be a second

judicial process when Mr Hall had been acquitted at the first

criminal trial in which the facts had been ventilated. An

inquest was likely to be seen, in any narrow legalistic terms,

as directed towards a verdict whose substance was that Mr Hall

was the killer. A verdict of unlawful killing would not be

inconsistent with Mr Hall's acquittal, but that is how everyone

would regard it. ... It is not for the court to substitute its

discretion simply because I might have come to a different

conclusion had the discretion been vested in the court, which it

is not. For these reasons the application fails."

An article in the Yorkshire Evening Post on 14 December 1995

read, so far as relevant, as follows.

"Coroner names husband cleared of murder as the killer.

A Leeds man cleared by a jury of murdering his wife has been

named as the killer in the High Court. ...

The allegation was presented during a hearing to try to reverse

a decision made by the Home Secretary ... to refuse an inquest

into the death of [Mrs Hall] ...

Despite the Crown Court verdict Mr I.B., representing the Home

Secretary told the High Court that the West Yorkshire Coroner has

since told the Home Office of his 'definite opinion that

[Mrs Hall] was murdered by her husband in a location in his

jurisdiction and her body had been destroyed by burning and

cannot be recovered'.

[Arguing against an inquest, Mr I.B. continued] 'To put it

crudely, nobody would be in any doubt at all what in fact

unlawful killing meant. It would mean that a man who had been

acquitted in the Crown Court was to be stigmatised as guilty by

a coroner or jury if he sat with one'."

B. Relevant domestic law

A coroner is required to hold an inquest where inter alia there

is a body in his jurisdiction and reasonable cause to suspect that the

deceased died a violent or unnatural death (Section 8 of the Coroners

Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act")). However, where there is no body but the

coroner has reason to believe that a death has occurred and that the

body has been destroyed, the coroner may only report the facts to the

Secretary of State (Section 15 (1) of the 1988 Act). In such a case,

the Secretary of State may, if he considers it desirable to do so,

direct a coroner to hold an inquest (Section 15 (2)).

COMPLAINTS

1. By letter of 12 June 1995, the applicant complains about the

article in the Yorkshire Evening Post of 14 December 1995, citing it

as an example of the way he has been treated since his acquittal.

2. The applicant also complains of the order of the judge at the end

of the applicant's trial by which the tapes of the applicant's alleged

"confession" were made public, and the subsequent media coverage.

3. Finally, the applicant makes various other complaints, including

an alleged conspiracy by the West Yorkshire Police Force and a

reference to him in a newspaper in connection with a different

incident.

The applicant alleges variously violations of Articles 8, 10, 13,

14 and 15 of the Convention and of Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the

Convention in connection with the decision of the trial judge in his

case to release the tapes of the evidence which had not been put to the

jury.

PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COMMISSION

The application was introduced on 6 May 1995 and registered on

27 September 1995.

On 27 November 1996 the Commission decided to request further

information of the Government, pursuant to Rule 48 para. 2 (a) of its

Rules of Procedure. The information was submitted on 30 January 1997,

and the applicant submitted his comments on it on 26 March 1997.

THE LAW

1. The applicant complains about the article in the Yorkshire

Evening Post of 14 December 1995, citing it as an example of the way

he has been treated since his acquittal.

The Commission has considered this complaint in the context of

Article 6 para. 2 (Art. 6-2) of the Convention, which provides as

follows:

"2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed

innocent until proved guilty according to law."

The Commission recalls that Article 6 para. 2 (Art. 6-2) of the

Convention applies not only to statements by judicial authorities, but

also to statements by other public authorities (Eur. Court HR, Allenet

de Ribemont v. France judgment of 10 February 1995, Series A no. 308,

p. 16, para. 36). It applies whilst criminal proceedings are pending,

but may also be relevant after a person has been finally acquitted, if

there is a sufficient link between the criminal proceedings and the

statement in question (Eur. Court HR, Sekanina v. Austria judgment of

25 August 1993, Series A no. 266-A, p. 13, para. 22). The Commission

also recalls that where a statement is made which is capable of being

interpreted as a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence,

that statement must be considered in the light of subsequent

developments, even if the subsequent developments do not follow

directly from an appeal by the party concerned (cf. Eur. Court HR,

Adolf v. Austria judgment of 26 March 1992, Series A no. 49, pp. 18-19,

para. 40; in that case, the Court took into consideration the reasoning

of the Supreme Court on a plea of nullity to safeguard the law that a

decision of the District Court had not involved anything in the nature

of a verdict of guilty.

The statement of the coroner in his letter of 16 March 1994 was

a statement by a public authority that he considered that the applicant

had murdered his wife. It therefore prima facie gives rise to issues

under Article 6 para. 2 (Art. 6-2) of the Convention, provided that a

sufficient link can be established between the acquittal in the

criminal proceedings and the statement itself.

However, the letter was not a public statement, and the applicant

only became aware of it because it was referred to in the course of

judicial review proceedings by Mrs Hall's sister, and was subsequently

reported in the press. The Commission must therefore consider not

merely the letter by the coroner, or the report of it in the press, but

the manner in which the letter was considered by the other authorities

in the case, namely the Home Office and the judge in the judicial

review proceedings.

The impugned statement in the coroner's letter was made in the

context of a request to the Secretary of State for an inquest to be

held. The Secretary of State, however, declined to order an inquest

precisely because of the potential for unfairness of subjecting an

acquitted defendant to a second judicial process in circumstances where

all the issues had already been ventilated in the criminal trial.

Further, the Undersecretary for State made a statement in

Parliament on the importance of not directing an inquest in the present

case which might reach a verdict inconsistent with the acquittal of the

defendant in the criminal proceedings.

Finally, in his judgment on Mrs Hall's sister's application for

judicial review of the Secretary of State's decision not to order an

inquest, Mr Justice May, whilst underlining that his role was to review

the Secretary of State's decision, not to take it, did not accept the

criticism of the decision not to order an inquest.

The Commission considers that, taking the letter of the coroner

in its proper context, that is, in the context of the decisions and

public statement of the Secretary of State and of the judgment of

14 December 1995, the circumstances of the case do not disclose any

appearance of a violation of Article 6 para. 2 (Art. 6-2) of the

Convention.

The Commission would add that the fact that the applicant's

complaint as made refers to the item in the Yorkshire Evening Post does

not affect this conclusion: the newspaper article contained reference

to the coroner's letter and to the Secretary of State's view and,

although the headline refers to the coroner's letter rather than to the

proceedings as a whole, the article ultimately does no more than

reflect what had happened in court and was therefore in the public

domain.

It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-

founded within the meaning of Article 27 para. 2 (Art. 27-2) of the

Convention.

2. The applicant also complains of the order of the judge at the end

of the applicant's trial by which the tapes of the applicant's alleged

"confession" were made public, and the subsequent media coverage.

The Commission is not required to decide whether or not the facts

submitted by the applicant in this part of the application disclose any

appearance of a violation of the Convention as, under Article 26

(Art. 26) of the Convention, the Commission may only deal with a

complaint submitted within a period of six months from the date on

which the final decision was taken. The "final decision" in the present

case is represented by the order made on 10 March 1994 and/or the

newspaper articles published in the days which followed, which dates

are more than six months before the date on which the application was

submitted.

It follows that this part of the application must be rejected

under Article 27 para. 3 (Art. 27-3) of the Convention.

3. Finally, the applicant makes various other complaints, including

an alleged conspiracy by the West Yorkshire Police Force and a

reference to him in a newspaper in relation to a different incident.

However, insofar as these matters have been substantiated and are

within its competence, the Commission finds that they do not disclose

any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the

Convention or its Protocols.

It follows that this part of the application must be rejected in

accordance with Article 27 para. 2 (Art. 27-2) of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Commission, unanimously,

DECLARES THE APPLICATION INADMISSIBLE.

M.F. BUQUICCHIO J. LIDDY

Secretary President

to the First Chamber of the First Chamber

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HALL v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

HALL v. THE UNITED KINGDOM

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