FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 44299/98
by Gary MILLS
against the United Kingdom
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 16 September 2003 as a Chamber composed of:
MrM. Pellonpää, President,
SirNicolas Bratza,
MrM. Fischbach,
MrJ. Casadevall,
MrS. Pavlovschi,
MrJ. Borrego Borrego,
MrsE. Fura-Sandström, judges,
and Mr M. O’Boyle, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged with the European Commission of Human Rights on 20 January 1998,
Having regard to Article 5 § 2 of Protocol No. 11 to the Convention, by which the competence to examine the application was transferred to the Court,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the information provided by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant is a British citizen, born in 1959 and was until recently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in HM Prison Erlestoke, Devon. He is represented before the Court by Mr R. Batt, a solicitor practising in London.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant, and Anthony Poole, were tried for the murder of H.W., who was found in the street with serious injuries. H.W., wanted by the police for an offence committed elsewhere, had been taken to hospital. When he proved unco-operative, he was discharged into police custody. He later collapsed in a police cell and died. The medical evidence called at the trial was that the injuries (17 stab wounds and four fractures) had so damaged his muscles and bone that fatty material had entered into his blood stream and led to embolisms that caused his collapse and death. It was the Crown case that both accused had attacked H.W. inside a house, the applicant with a crowbar and Poole with a knife, and both had inflicted the wounds upon him which caused his death. The Crown accepted that on that night H.W. had been in an aggressive mood and had picked a fist fight with the applicant, but the Crown case was that the violence used by the applicant and Poole on H.W. was not used in lawful self-defence by the applicant and in lawful defence of the applicant by Poole but went far beyond what was reasonably necessary for such defence.
On 26 January 1990, the applicant and Anthony Poole were convicted of murder on the basis of a joint enterprise, by a judge and jury at the Bristol Crown Court, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In February 1996, they both appealed against their convictions to the Court of Appeal. In its judgment of 16 April 1996, it found that there had been a number of material irregularities, including findings that the police had offered money to an utterly unreliable witness to give evidence and told another witness that he would be arrested if he turned up at court, but did not consider that the convictions were unsafe.
The applicant, and Poole, appealed to the House of Lords. On 24 July 1997 the Lords gave judgment finding another material irregularity in the course of the trial concerning the failure of the prosecution to disclose to the defence statements made by an eye-witness to part of the fight, but confirming the view of the Court of Appeal that the convictions were not unsafe.
The applicant applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) concerning his conviction.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complained under Article 6 §§ 1, 3 (b) and (d) of the Convention that he did not receive a fair trial, inter alia because of non-disclosure by the prosecution of statements by an eye-witness and the intimidation of that witness by a police officer, the failure to hold a retrial to hear all the new evidence, the unreliability of evidence and inadequate time to prepare for trial. He also complained under Article 5 § 1 (a) that he was not convicted by a competent court as the jury were deprived of material evidence necessary to reach a true verdict; under Article 5 § 4 that he had not been released from unlawful detention; under Article 10 of the Convention that there had been a failure of various authorities to provide him with information necessary for his trial; and under Article 13 of the Convention that he had no effective remedy for his complaints.
PROCEDURE
On 1 February 2000, the Court decided to invite the Government to submit observations on the admissibility and merits of the applicant’s complaints. On 26 July 2000, the Government submitted their observations on admissibility and merits.
On 7 December 2000, the applicant’s solicitor informed the Registry that the applicant was pursuing an application for judicial review of the decision of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) not to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. He requested that the proceedings before the Court be suspended.
On 3 April 2001, after receiving comments from the Government, the Court decided to adjourn its examination of the application.
On 15 August 2001, the applicant’s representatives informed the Registry that the Administrative Court had granted permission for judicial review and a full hearing was pending.
On 20 December 2001 the Divisional Court refused the application for judicial review of the CCRC’s decision but expressed the view that almost every aspect of the prosecution was tarnished and that the Court of Appeal could now have a doubt about the safety of the applicant’s conviction.
In the light of this judgment, the CCRC decided on 22 May 2002 to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
On 13 June 2003, the Registry requested the applicant to provide information about the state of the domestic proceedings. No reply was received.
On or about 17 June 2003, the Court of Appeal quashed the applicant’s conviction and the applicant was released from prison.
By letter of 12 August 2003, the Registry referred the applicant’s solicitor to the lack of response to the Court’s previous letter and warned that, in light of the quashing of the conviction and the absence of communication from the applicant, the application might be struck from the list of cases.
THE LAW
The Court notes that the applicant, whose conviction has now been quashed, has not responded to letters from the Registry concerning the state of proceedings in this case.
The Court considers that in the circumstances the applicant may be regarded as no longer wishing to pursue his application within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the examination of the application to be continued.
Accordingly, the case should be struck out of the Court’s list of cases.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Michael O’BoyleMatti Pellonpää
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy