7
As we
Subsequently he repeated the warning in similar terms.
understand the complaint it is that by telling the jury that they
were entitled to convict even in the absence of corroboration if
entirely satisfied of the truth of the accomplices' evidence the learned judge so weakened the effect of the warning that the
impression given was that corroboration was not really important.
In our view the law is correctly stated in Reg. v. Prater 1960 2 Q.B. 464, 466 where Edmund Davies, J., delivering the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, said:
"... in practice it is desirable that a warning should be given that the witness, whether he comes from the dock, as in this case, or whether he be a Crown witness, may be a witness with some purpose of his own to serve".
What is required, therefore, is that the jury should be warned (a) of danger and not merely, for example, of a "need for
particular care", and (b) of the nature of that danger, namely that an accomplice may have a purpose of his own to serve: compare Reg. v. Price 1969 1 Q.B. 541. In our view the warning in the
present case was amply sufficient.
Then it is said that there was insufficient corroboration. It seems to us that this ground of appeal is misconceived. From what we have just said it follows that it is always open to a jury to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice if they see fit and therefore even the complete absence of corroboration is per se never material. An appeal may properly be founded upon the sufficiency of the warning of the danger in convicting without corroboration or upon a misdirection as to what constitutes corroboration. Apart from such grounds the only possible line of attack is that the absence of satisfactory corroboration supports a general contention that the verdict is
unsafe.
That is not the way the matter was raised in the grounds of appeal. What Ground 9 of the first Applicant's appeal and Additional Ground 8 of the other Applicants' appeal appear to allege is that the learned judge ought to have directed the jury that there was no evidence capable of amounting to corroboration and this appears to have been the understanding of counsel for the Crown also. We are satisfied that there was evidence capable of amounting to corroboration. If, on the other hand, it was intended to allege that the learned judge misdirected the jury that the evidence of one accomplice can corroborate the evidence of another