Neutral Citation Number: Double-click to add NC number Case No.: 200901936 B4
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION) ON APPEAL FROM COVENTRY CROWN COURT HH JUDGE ECCLES Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL Date: 6 December 2010 Before: LORD JUSTICE STANLEY BURNTON MR JUSTICE KING and MR JUSTICE NICOL --------------------Between:
Anthony David O'SHEA
- and THE QUEEN -----------------------------------------
Appellant Respondent
Tania Griffiths QC (instructed by Chris Saltrese) for Anthony O'Shea Miranda Moore QC and Philip Bown for the CPS Hearing dates: 11th and 12th November 2010 ---------------------
Approved Judgment
Judgment Approved by the court for handing down.
R v O'Shea
Lord Justice Stanley Burnton: Introduction 1. This is our judgment on the appeal of Anthony O'Shea against his conviction on 18 October 2005 at the Crown Court at Northampton, before His Honour Judge Eccles and a jury, of two counts of incitement to distribute an indecent photograph of a child contrary to common law and three counts of attempting to incite another to distribute an indecent photograph of a child contrary to s 1 (1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981. On 15 November 2005 HH Judge Eccles sentenced him to 5 months' imprisonment on each count concurrent. He was disqualified from working with children and required to comply with the provisions of Part 2 of the Act (notification to the police) for 7 years. His appeal is brought considerably out of time, by leave of the single judge, who granted the necessary extension of time of 3 years and 5 months. At the beginning of the hearing of the appeal, the appellant again applied for an adjournment, on the basis that the respondent had not given adequate answers to allegations made by the appellant and there would not be sufficient time for a fair hearing. We declined to adjourn the appeal. We were of the view that the appeal could fairly be heard in the 2 days allocated. However, we agreed to keep the question of adjournment under review. In the result, by adopting the course followed in civil claims of allowing the experts' reports to stand as their evidence in chief, the hearing was completed in the time allocated. In order to ensure that significant points had not been omitted inadvertently from counsels' final speeches, we permitted them to supplement their submissions in writing. As Miss Moore QC rightly commented, we expected to receive short focused supplementary submissions. What we did receive from counsel for the appellant were long and very full written submission, to which the respondent had to respond. We have considered them carefully. We do not propose to address in our judgment every point and every contention in them: we shall focus on the facts and issues that are, in our judgment, significant. On the evening before the first day of the hearing of this appeal, Independent Television News broadcast an item on Operation Ore, suggesting that there were doubts over the safety of convictions. It was recorded on to a DVD, and we were able to view it. We ordered the production by ITN of material that had been referred to. It was duly produced by ITN on the morning of the second day of the hearing. Having considered it, we concluded that it did not bear significantly on the issues raised in this appeal, so that there was no good reason to adjourn the hearing.

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