Supreme Court
Appeal No. 3 of 1979
Barrington-Jones

Mr. J.C. Gray for the Appellant
Mr. H. Elrington for the Respondent

Inferior Appeal against conviction and sentence - Resident Magistrate considering defendant's criminal record before pronouncing guilty verdict - Conviction held to be unsafe and set aside.

J U D G M E N T

The Appellant was convicted on a plea of guilty of stealing a bicycle before the District Magistrate at Corozal on the 11th July, 1978 and now appeals against sentence.

Although the appeal was confined to sentence Mr. Gray drew attention to the fact that the Appellant's plea of guilty appeared to be equivocal because he had said in mitigation "I bought the bicycle." Mr. Gray submitted that having recorded this the District Magistrate should have thereupon rejected the plea of guilty, and entered a plea of not guilty to the charge.

Mr. Gray also adverted to a further matter in respect of the concluding paragraph of the District Magistrate's Reasons for Decision wherein he stated:-

"Therefore from the evidence produced, defendant's plea, his story, and his previous conviction, he was found guilty."

It is, of course, fundamental that a defendant's record must not be disclosed to the Court until after there has been a finding of guilt; and it is therefore quite wrong for a magistrate to be informed of such before his adjudication. It follows that it is equally wrong to base a finding of guilt (even if only partially) on the fact that a defendant has a previous conviction.

Mr. Elrington very properly conceded that the Crown could not support the conviction in the circumstances of the case.

For these reasons the conviction is considered unsafe and unsatisfactory and it follows that it cannot stand. The appeal will be allowed, the conviction quashed and the sentence set aside.

It is further ordered that the case should now be heard again before another magistrate.

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