Information Note on the Court’s case-law 10

September 1999

Condron v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 35718/97

Decision 7.9.1999 [Section III]

Article 6

Criminal proceedings

Article 6-1

Fair hearing

Insufficient direction of trial judge to jury on interpretation to give to silence of the defendants: admissible

The applicants, a husband and wife, are both self-confessed heroin addicts. They were convicted of drug of fences and sentenced to imprisonment. In their appeal, they contended that the trial judge should have excluded their "no comment" police interviews on the basis that they had merely followed their solicitor’s advice in refusing to answer questions. The Co urt of Appeal found that the trial judge’s direction to the jury was defective, as he should have advised them that an adverse inference could only be drawn if they concluded that the only sensible reason for the applicants’ refusal to answer the questions was that they had no answer to them or none that would stand up to cross-examination. However, the Court of Appeal did not consider that this lacuna in the direction rendered the convictions unsafe, given the weight of the other evidence presented against the accused.

Admissible under Article 6 § 1, § 2 and § 3 (b) and (c).

[NB. The case is distinguishable from the John Murray v. United Kingdom judgment (Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-I) in that the adverse inferences were drawn by a jury, whereas in the Murray case the trial had been held before a professional judge without a jury.]

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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