Eyewitness Identification and the English Courts: A Century of Trial and Error*

This article is based on a paper read at the 30th International Conference of the Academy of Law and Mental Health in Padua, Italy, June 2007. The review of pre-Devlin procedures is derived from a chapter written by the first author for Shepherd, Ellis and Davies (1982) which also contains further detail on the cases cited.

Abstract

A review is presented of over a century of identification practice in England and Wales and describes some illustrative cases of persons innocent of the crime, but who were nevertheless convicted on the basis of honest but mistaken identification. The review demonstrates that despite changes to procedure instituted by the Devlin Report in 1976 and developments in the use of video parades as an alternative to the traditional live parade, miscarriages of justice still occur. The authors argue that, in the light of developments in CCTV and DNA profiling and of what is now known about the inherent fallibility of human identification processes, it is timely to look again at the rule embedded in English common law that a single confident identification of a suspect by a credible witness is sufficient to convict an accused.

Key words:

• CCTV
• identification evidence
• miscarriages of justice
• video parades

Notes

This article is based on a paper read at the 30th International Conference of the Academy of Law and Mental Health in Padua, Italy, June 2007. The review of pre-Devlin procedures is derived from a chapter written by the first author for Shepherd, Ellis and Davies (1982) which also contains further detail on the cases cited.

1. In March 1999 the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the Hanratty case to the Court of Appeal. The Appeal was dismissed at a hearing in April 2002, when the prosecution produced DNA evidence linking Hanratty to clothing from the scene of the crime. The defence alleged that this link had arisen from inadvertent contamination of exhibits at a time when no importance was attached to safeguards. The Court in its judgement described the evidence of Hanratty's guilt as “overwhelming” and concluded “the Court accepted that even without the new DNA evidence the case against James Hanratty was very strong and that the [original] trial had been fair”. (Summary of the judgment. Retrieved on 26 March 2008, from http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/archive/ 2002/120_02.html)