Correct on the date of publication - 27 October 2025
Question:
What conduct makes up the offence of perverting the course of justice?
Answer:
The offence is committed where a person acts or embarks upon a course of conduct which has a tendency to and is intended to pervert the course of justice (R v Vreones (1891)). Here are some of the ways where conduct is capable of amounting to an offence:
(a) Making false allegations;(b) Perjury;
(c) Concealing offences;
(d) Obstructing the police;
(e) Assisting others to evade arrest;
(f) Failing to prosecute;
(g) Procuring and indemnifying sureties;
(h) Interference with witnesses, evidence and jurors;
(i) Publication of matters calculated to prejudice a fair trial.
A number of decided cases illustrate the parameters of the offence.
The case of R v Clark (2003), illustrates conduct which falls short of meeting the requirements of the offence. In the case, the Court of Appeal held that the characteristics of the offence of perverting the course of justice were not to be widened so as to embrace a course of conduct where the driver of a motor vehicle, who, under the influence of alcohol, was involved in a fatal road accident and removed himself and his vehicle from the accident scene and only reported the accident the following day, when he, the driver, was confident that the breathalyser law presented no risk to him.
Allowing Clark's appeal against his conviction, the Court of Appeal ruled that whilst there was no closed list of conduct falling within the scope of the offence, there was need for caution in extending the ambit of the offence. In this regard it was held that the accused person's conduct could not be said to be concealing evidence and that the acts relied upon by the prosecution did not make out the offence.
The decision in the Clark case was followed in R v Jabber (2006) in which case it was held that escaping from the scene of the crime and subsequently lying about involvement was insufficient to amount to concealing information about the offence.
The case of R v Sookoo (2002) provides further indication when such charges should be preferred. In the case the Court of Appeal gave direction that only where cases had serious aggravating features was it proper to prefer a charge alleging the offence.
Sookoo had been arrested for theft of saucepans worth £99. During the investigations he gave a false name to the police. At Crown Court he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for the theft and nine months imprisonment, to run consecutively, for doing an act tending and intending to pervert the course of justice.
Allowing Sookoo's appeal against the nine months sentence and reducing it to one of three months, to run concurrently with the theft sentence, the Court indicated that it was only right to charge the common law offence where seriously aggravating circumstances existed such as police time and resources being wasted; members of the public being wrongfully detained or accused as a result of them being named by the offender.
What constitutes the course of justice also featured in the case of R v Cotter and others (2002).
Following their convictions for conspiring to pervert the course of justice, Christopher Cotter and his co-accused appealed on the grounds that an investigation carried out following the making of false allegations was insufficient to found charges of perverting the course of justice. Rejecting this submission, it was held, applying R v Bailey (1956), that the course of public justice includes the process of a criminal investigation and did so irrespective of whether the allegation was made against a particular individual or not.
In the Cotter case it was held that the offence was defined in sufficient terms to satisfy the requirements of article 7 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, (no punishment without law).
Two further cases of interest are DPP of Mauritius v Hurnam 2007 and R v A 2012.
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