Ben Douglas-Jones appeared for the Crown in the conjoined appeals of YY and Nori [2016] EWCA Crim 18 in which the Court of Appeal (Leveson P) today said that the CCRC needs to reconsider its use of the exceptional procedure to refer cases to the Court of Appeal without a previous appeal. Where the CCRC takes on cases that can be referred directly to the Court of Appeal, resources are not being deployed as efficiently as possible. More important, detailed consideration of other cases of alleged miscarriage of justice (which have previously exhausted all rights of appeal) is being delayed. The Court also distinguished the approach to the safety of convictions in appeals based on defective advice where the charge was failing to present a passport not possessing a passport with intent.
