Court of Appeal quashes immediate custodial sentence after sentencing judge had suggested it might be suspended if defendant pleaded guilty
August 25, 2026
The recent Administrative Court case of The King (on the application of William Malone) v Llandudno Magistrates 2025 [EWHC 1740] serves to highlight the importance of the Preparation for Effective Trial (PET) form and at the same time reiterates the factors Magistrates should consider when exercising their discretion in whether to allow an adjournment of a hearing. The judgment reaffirms that such applications should be rigorously scrutinised.
Shortly before midnight on 27 July 2024 police officers arrived at Mr Malone’s home address to investigate reports of a car belonging to him being driven into a hedge. He lived close to where the car was found. In her statement, PC Roberts, the arresting officer, claimed that Malone admitted driving the car and that he had drunk alcohol. However, when asked to provide a specimen of breath Malone said that he had not been driving and refused for which he was arrested and taken to the police station.
At custody, he was again requested by Police Sergeant Hughes to provide a specimen of breath for analysis to which he refused. Consequently, he was charged with failing to provide a specimen of breath at the police station under section 7(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
At the first court hearing on 12 August 2024, Malone pleaded not guilty. PC Roberts statement suggested that Malone had been obstructive, and that when at custody Malone had refused to provide a specimen of breath and that when asked if there were any medical reasons why he could not do so he had said “I’m not telling you, not interested”.
The PET form recorded the nature of M’s defence in that there was a dispute as to the statutory warning, and that there was a “reasonable excuse” for not providing a sample of breath, namely that M was suffering from PTSD, which impacted his mental state, and that he had suffered a panic attack during the breath testing procedure. This defence requires the Crown to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Defendant (M) did not have a reasonable excuse.
The form also referred to a request for CCTV and Body Worn Footage. Somewhat crucially, it was detailed in the PET form that PC Roberts was required to address the issue of reasonable excuse.
A trial was fixed for 4 October 2024. The prosector’s note of the hearing contradicted the PET form in that it recorded that PC Roberts was not required to attend trial. On 5 September 2024 the Prosecution served body worn cameras of PC Roberts and CCTV footage of the custody area. The Prosecution further indicated that statements were awaited from the officer who conducted the breath test procedure (Sergeant Hughes) and from the healthcare professional who had examined Malone. At the same time a request was made for Malone’s solicitors to confirm if PC Roberts was required at the trial.
On 11 September 2024, Malone’s solicitors applied for the trial to be vacated as they were unable to comply with a direction to serve expert evidence by 23 September 2024 because they were awaiting further police statements and that expert evidence could not be obtained without them.
On 23 September 2024, the Prosecution served the statement of a custody nurse.
On 25 September 2024, the application by Malone’s solicitors for the trial to be vacated was heard by a District Judge. The Crown opposed the application and stated that they were trial ready. The District Judge refused the application, although it was not clear what the reason for this were. At that hearing, the Prosecution did not seek to clarify if PC Roberts was required nor did they tell the District Judge that they did not have a statement, and had not therefore served on Malone’s solicitors the statement of PS Hughes, the Custody Sergeant.
That statement was only served on 4 October 2024, the day of the trial. Neither PC Roberts or PS Hughes attended the trial, and without them the Prosecution had to apply for an adjournment. The Magistrates granted the adjournment, and gave their reasons, to the effect that there was fault on both sides and that it was in the interests of justice to grant the adjournment.
Malone applied for a judicial review of that decision on the basis that the decision was unlawful and irrational and that the reasons given for the adjournment were inadequate.
The Administrative Court emphasised the discretionary power to adjourn a trial in accordance with Section 10 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980, confirming that where the discretion was exercised in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Rules and Criminal Practice Directions, the Administrative Court would not interfere. The Court then went on to consider the lawfulness and rationale of the Magistrates’ decision in the instant case and examined trite law in the case of Crown Prosecution Service v Picton [2006] EWHC 1108 (Admin) (08 May 2006) and the Criminal Practice Directions.
The Court concluded that the reasons given by the Magistrates were inadequate. It reasoned that the Magistrates should have made it clear that they were proceeding on the basis that the starting point was that the trial should continue and that there needed to be a clear reason for adjourning. That should have been coupled with an indication that account had been taken of the disadvantages which would flow from an adjournment. Those disadvantages were compounded in this case by the fact that the adjournment application was being made on the morning of the trial.
It concluded further that in order to apply the necessary level of rigorous scrutiny the Magistrates needed to review the history of the case. This would have revealed that M’s solicitors had applied unsuccessfully for an adjournment 10 days previously, and that had it been examined, it would have been discovered that in opposing the application to adjourn 10 days earlier the Crown had asserted that it was trial ready. The fact of the refusal of Malone’s solicitors’ application meant that it was all the more important that the decision on the Crown’s application be adequately reasoned.
The Administrative Court further concluded, “it is entirely possible that the District Judge who refused the Claimant’s adjournment application on 25th September 2024 would have come to a different conclusion if he had been told (as he should have been) that the Prosecution did not know whether PC Roberts could attend on 4th October 2024; that the statement from PS Hughes had not yet been obtained; and that the Prosecution was not able to say when that would be served on the Claimant or whether PS Hughes would be available for the trial on 4th October 2024.”
In a further dismissal of the Magistrates’ decision, the Administrative Court criticised that the Magistrates had ignored the fact that Sergeant Hughes was not present at court on 4 October and that the Crown had only served his statement on the morning of the hearing, and accordingly, the Magistrates had attached too much weight to the suggestion that there had been “failings on both sides”.
In ordering that the Magistrates’ decision to adjourn be quashed, the Administrative Court asserted that fairness required that the case be remitted to the Magistrates’ Court with a direction to acquit.
Comment
This case provides a useful summary to practitioners as to the law on trial adjournments. There is a clear requirement for rigorous scrutiny of applications to adjourn, as well as the requirement for expedition and fairness in Magistrates’ Court proceedings, Nevertheless it should be noted that the refusal of the application by M’s solicitors weighed heavily upon the minds of the Administrative Court, “not on some form of “tit for tat” basis whereby a Crown adjournment application was to be refused just because a defence application had been refused earlier”, but because the Magistrates’ had failed to take account of the important factor that the Crown had indicated that it was trial ready, when evidently they were not. The Administrative Court thereby emphasised that each application to adjourn had to be considered separately on its separate merits.
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