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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Pecco, R. v [2010] EWCA Crim 972 (22 April 2010)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2010/972.html
Cite as: [2010] EWCA Crim 972

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Neutral Citation Number: [2010] EWCA Crim 972
Case No: 200903318 C3

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
22nd April 2010

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE STANLEY BURNTON
MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT
RECORDER OF BRADFORD
HIS HONOUR JUDGE STEWART QC
(Sitting as a judge of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division)
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R E G I N A
v
NADIA NATASHA PECCO

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Mr P Marquis appeared on behalf of the Appellant
Mr H French appeared on behalf of the Crown
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HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
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  1. LORD JUSTICE STANLEY BURNTON: Nadia Natasha Pecco is a young lady aged 31. She was convicted of robbery at Snaresbrook Crown Court on 27th February 2009 before Her Honour Judge Kamill and a jury and was subsequently sentenced to four years' imprisonment. She appeals against her conviction by leave of the single judge.

  2. It is unnecessary for the purposes of this appeal to describe in detail the robbery, which undoubtedly took place, although that evidence is in short compass. It took place on 2nd September 2008. The manageress of the shop in question was opening up the hairdressers' shop where the robbery took place. A lady entered, produced a knife and demanded money and £400 was handed over. The woman left. A passer-by, Jacqueline Lee, gave chase, but the woman escaped on a bus. The knife was discarded and recovered.

  3. The manageress, Miss Day, Miss Lee and another employee of the shop gave descriptions of the robber. The defendant, who lived locally and fitted the description given by Miss Lee, was arrested the same evening. She denied being the robber. She said she had been at home with her two children and a friend, who supported her alibi.

  4. A video identification parade took place on the day after the robbery. The appellant was identified. Had that parade been properly conducted, there could have been no arguable ground of appeal in this case. However, in our judgment, unfortunately it was not conducted in accordance with the Code. Not only was it not conducted in accordance with the Code, but on any basis it was defective. It was defective for this reason. The appellant has two obvious tattoos, one on each side of the neck rather high up. One is a tattoo of a rose that is red and one is of a winged cross. The tattoos were noticed by both the manageress and Miss Lee. Miss Lee failed to identify anyone at the video parade which she attended. Miss Day did. As is required by the Code, and as is normal, there were eight other images of young women who more or less corresponded to her description, in that they were roughly of the same age and were black.

  5. The purpose of the identity parade is to see whether a reliable identification can be made by a witness. If a suspected person has a very noticeable feature which can be seen easily on her and which is not present on any other of the persons shown in the video parade, the witness will be able to rule out the others. Equally, if she has a feature which is concealed but one can see from the other persons on the parade that they do not have that feature, inevitably the other persons are liable to be excluded. The value of the identification procedure in those circumstances is very substantially reduced. That is what occurred in this case, in that, having viewed the tattoos on the appellant and having viewed the images in the video parade, it is clear to us that all, or possibly all but one, of the other young women whose photographs are seen on the video parade could be excluded by reason of the fact it is clear they do not have the kind of tattoos that the appellant has. In those circumstances the value of the parade is insignificant.

  6. There was no other significant evidence against the appellant. No clothes corresponding to the description of those worn by the robber were found. There was no fingerprint evidence against her, and no DNA evidence. It is true that she has a rose red tattoo as described by Miss Lee, but we do not know how many young women or young black women also have such tattoos.

  7. In our judgment, in those circumstances the evidence of the identification in the identity parade should not have been put before the jury: its value was negligible. Having been allowed to go before the jury, it was important that a very clear direction was given to the jury to the effect that they had to consider the possibility that this appellant was identified because she was, by reason of the coverage of her neck, the only one who could be the robber in question. It is true that the witness said that she recognised the appellant by her face rather than by reference to any tattoo or absence of tattoo or coverage of a tattoo, but it is quite clear that she was an intelligent lady who appreciated that the absence of a tattoo excluded someone on the parade.

  8. In our judgment, this conviction has to be quashed as unsafe, first, because the value of identification parade was minimal, and, secondly, because the direction of the judge in the summing-up was inadequate having regard to the very stark defect in the identification parade to which we have referred. Moreover, it is important that this Code is adhered to. Mistakes in identification leading to the conviction of innocent persons have been all too common in the past. The rules as to identification parades are intended to minimise that risk. This identification parade did not. In those circumstances, and for those reasons, we allow the appeal. The conviction will be quashed.

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URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2010/972.html