Lord Justice General

Appellant: E. Targowski, Q.C., A. Mason; John Pryde & Co., Edinburgh

Respondent: D. Bain, Q,C. A.D.; Crown Agent

8 July 2011

[1] This is an aspect of the appeal by Imran Shahid who was convicted after trial in the High Court in November 2006 of the abduction and murder of a young man by the name of Kriss Donald. A number of grounds of appeal against conviction have already been heard and disposed of by the court. The outstanding ground of appeal against conviction is that formulated as ground 1 in the Note of Appeal. As formulated, that ground is concerned with the particular circumstances of the dock identification of the appellant made by a Crown witness named Jamie Wallace which, it was contended, was incompatible with the appellant's Convention rights. The ground of appeal as formulated concludes by saying that in all the circumstances Jamie Wallace's dock identification of the appellant was solicited unfairly and in a manner incompatible with the appellant's right to a fair trial.

[2] The background to this was that Jamie Wallace gave evidence in the trial of the appellant that the appellant had been involved in the abduction of Kriss Donald in a street in Pollokshields, Glasgow. Part of the background also was that Jamie Wallace had been shown photographs on one occasion and had failed to pick out of these photographs a photograph of the appellant. He had also picked out stand-ins in a subsequent identification exercise and had failed to pick out the appellant in a VIPER exercise which had taken place sometime thereafter.

[3] So far as the presentation of this appeal is concerned, Mr Targowski moved substantially away from the terms of the ground of appeal as formulated. What he sought to do was to rely essentially upon certain aspects of a fair trial which were identified by Lord Rodger of Earlsferry in Holland v H.M. Advocate 2005 SCCR 417, at paras 57-8. He identified three safeguards which were significant to fairness of a trial. The first was the rights of the defence, the second the directions given by the trial judge, and the third the significance of other evidence in the case. Mr Targowski recognised that the appellant had had the services of counsel and it is obvious from consideration of the transcript of evidence that the appellant was very ably defended at his trial, that very detailed cross-examination of the witness Wallace was made by his counsel and that a powerful attack upon his credibility and reliability was presented by defence counsel in his speech to the jury. Another feature of the trial was that the Advocate depute also made detailed submissions to the jury in relation to their treatment of the evidence of Jamie Wallace. What Mr Targowski relied on primarily was the scope of the directions given by the trial judge in relation to identification by Jamie Wallace. It is unnecessary to go into the detail of the particular directions he gave in that regard but it should be noted that he did recognise that special directions were required where a witness made an identification in court when he had failed to do so on earlier occasions. The trial judge also drew the jury's attention to what had been said by the Crown and by defence counsel in relation to these matters in their respective speeches. This was amply sufficient.

[4] It is quite plain that the issue before the court ultimately is whether or not, by reason of the jury not having been given fuller directions, there was a miscarriage of justice. The Advocate depute drew our attention to a number of sources of evidence, which taken together and leaving aside altogether the evidence of Jamie Wallace, make it plain that there was a very powerful case indeed against the appellant in relation to the charges which had been directed against him. In all the circumstances we are satisfied that whatever criticisms might be made, and we are not satisfied that any justified criticisms can be made, of the scope of the judge's directions in relation to the identification evidence, there was no miscarriage of justice in this case. In these circumstances this ground of appeal is refused.