Caley-Knowles, Edward

Edward Caley-Knowles was convicted by a jury of assault occasioning actual bodily harm at Kendal Crown Court in October 1972. He admitted the assault but claimed it was justified.

The judge directed that there was no such defence in law and directed the jury formally to return a verdict of guilty without retiring to consider their verdict.

Mr Caley-Knowles received a sentence of nine months’ imprisonment suspended for two years.

The Court of Appeal dismissed an application by Mr Caley-Knowles in 1973.

He applied to the CCRC in August 2005 following the decision of the House of Lords in R v Wang (2005), in which Lords declared that there are no circumstances in which a judge is entitled to direct a jury to return a verdict of guilty.

The CCRC referred the conviction in November 2005 after considering whether:

• a conviction which is the result of a direction by the trial judge to the jury to convict where that jury has not been permitted to retire, choose a foreman, deliberate and deliver a collective verdict, is safe and;

• Regardless of the overwhelming evidence of guilt, a jury must have opportunity to deliver its verdict if its constitutional role is not to be undermined.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in June 2006.