Quiddington, Terence

Terence Quiddington was convicted in January 1997 of arson being reckless as to whether life is endangered. Mr Quiddington received a sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in February 1998.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that the prosecuting authorities had failed to disclose to the defence team significant evidence supporting Mr Quiddington’s account of his whereabouts on the night of the offence.

Important CCTV evidence had also not been disclosed.

If this evidence had been properly disclosed, it would have allowed Mr Quiddington the opportunity to challenge the identification evidence adduced by the prosecution at trial.

In addition, the CCRC considered that the judge’s summing up at trial did not provide the jury with sufficient guidelines as to how they should consider video identification evidence.

In the CCRC’s view, not only did the judge summarise this video evidence in a way that risked influencing the jury with his own views, but he also omitted to give any warning about the dangers of identifying a person from a videotape.

The CCRC referred the conviction in March 2000.

The Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in August 2000 and ordered a retrial.