The issues raised in R v. Cambell need to be reviewed by the House of Lords, says Adrian Keane
R v Anderson [1988] QB 678, [1988] 2 All ER 549, Lord Lane CJ described the Criminal Evidence Act 1898 (CEA 1898), s 1, with justification, as “a nightmare of construction”. No such concerns were expressed by Lord Phillips CJ in R v [2007] EWCA Crim 1472, [2007] All ER (D) 309 (Jun), when construing the new bad character provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (CJA 2003). However, the decision in that case is likely to prove highly controversial in three important respects.
A good character direction has two limbs: first, that good character is relevant to credibility; and second, that good character has probative value in relation to the issue of guilt, in that a person of good character is less likely to have committed the offence.
Before Campbell, it was well established that a good character direction will be of some value in every case in which it should be given (see R v Fulcher
