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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 >> Dixie, R. v [2009] EWCA Crim 188 (03 February 2009) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2009/188.html Cite as: [2009] EWCA Crim 188

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2A 2LL
		3 February 2009

1. Mr Justice Treacy: This applicant is Mark Philip Dixie. He renews his application for leave to appeal against conviction having been refused leave by the single judge.
2. The applicant was convicted of murder on 22 February 2008 at the Central Criminal Court after a trial. The circumstances lying behind his conviction are dreadful. On 24 September 2005 the deceased, Sally Anne Bowman, a young woman aged 18, went out for the evening with her sister. During the course of that evening she met an ex-boyfriend. At the end of the evening he saw her walk to her home at an address in south Croydon. That was at about 4.00 am. Several residents in the street where Miss Bowman lived heard screams at about 4.20 am and a man was seen acting furtively in the vicinity of her house. At 6.30 am a neighbour saw something unusual, went to investigate and discovered Miss Bowman's dead body lying there near the street.
3. The applicant had spent the evening of 24 September with friends. He was in the general south Croydon area and he was familiar with the street where Miss Bowman lived. He had in fact previously lived only a few doors away from her home.
4. Miss Bowman had been savagely attacked. She suffered ten stab wounds, including one to the right side of her neck, two through the abdomen and a fatal wound which had severed the right carotid artery. There was evidence of defensive injuries on both arms and bite marks upon her body.
5. Forensic scientific analysis revealed a DNA profile in semen which matched that of the applicant taken from swabs around Miss Bowman's private parts. Moreover, there was a further identification of a DNA profile relating to the applicant found on swabs taken from Miss Bowman's neck.
6. The applicant was arrested in June 2006. He answered no comment to all questions put to him in interview.
7. At the trial the Crown sought to introduce evidence of bad character related to two particular matters. First of all, the applicant's convictions in 1988 for indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm and, secondly, to adduce evidence that the applicant was a DNA match for semen found in the victim's underwear following the stabbing and rape of a student in Australia in 1998. He had not been tried in relation to this latter matter.
8. Those applications were opposed. The Recorder of London at a pre-trial hearing ruled that both incidents could be admitted to show a propensity to violence in the circumstances of sexual assault. The former ruling, that is the ruling in relation to the 1988 incident, was reconsidered by the trial judge as the Recorder had given leave for such reconsideration to take place. It was argued that the differences between the 1988 events and the age of those matters meant that the 1988 incident did not show a relevant propensity. The judge disagreed. He ruled that nothing had changed since the Recorder's ruling, and, accordingly, the 1988 incident was admitted as being relevant to the issue of propensity.
9. Those 1988 convictions arose from a complaint by a woman who encountered this applicant in a block of flats. He blocked her way as she attempted to leave a lift. He punched her in the eye and grabbed her in the throat as she began to fall. He stood close to her, apparently fumbling with his penis, saying, "Please, please, I really need this." She agreed to leave the building with him in order to avoid further violence and during the process of doing so he rubbed his knee up and down her leg, lifting her skirt. Eventually she managed to escape. In relation to that matter the applicant was arrested. He denied involvement with those offences but eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a total of six months' youth custody.
10. At his trial he gave evidence accepting that he had hit the victim causing injuries to her face. He said that was because of a remark she had made to him and that there was nothing of a sexual nature involved. He explained away his plea of guilty to the offence of indecent assault by saying that he thought if he did not plead guilty to that offence he might be charged with causing grievous bodily harm.
11. In the trial relating to the murder of Miss Bowman the Crown case was that this applicant had brutally stabbed Miss Bowman and then had sexual intercourse with her after her death. They relied on evidence of this applicant's bad character to show that he had a propensity to commit offences involving violence in order to achieve sexual gratification or heighten it.
12. The defence to the allegation of murdering Miss Bowman was that this applicant had come across her semi-clothed body while out walking. He had then taken the opportunity to have sexual intercourse with her, thinking that she was drunk and had passed out. He claimed that he had only realised she was dead during the course of sexual intercourse when she did not react to his biting. Accordingly he panicked in order to cover his DNA, which he realised he had deposited, and put cement dust in her vagina and mouth.
13. The issue at the trial was whether the jury were sure that it was this applicant who had murdered the deceased. The jury were indeed sure. It is not surprising, in our view, given the specious nature of the account which he put forward to explain away his actions having failed to give any account at all to the police when questions were put to him.
14. He persists in grounds of appeal against conviction before this court alleging that the judge was in error in permitting the bad character evidence in relation to the 1988 assault to be adduced. The argument is that the circumstances of the 1988 assault were different, in the sense that they involved a relatively minor sexual assault, and did not show, and were irrelevant to a propensity to commit murder.
15. We have considered the rulings made in the court below. It is plain to us that both the Recorder of London and the trial judge were alive to the relevant features of the lapse of time since 1988, the age of the applicant at that time and the less serious circumstances of that matter. In our judgment, they gave those factors appropriate weight, and, in our judgment, their conclusion, namely that the evidence of the 1988 incident was admissible, was neither demonstrably wrong nor unreasonable.
16. We have reviewed the prominence given to the matter during the trial. We do not find that this episode took an unduly prominent place in the case. Once the applicant had sought to explain away his guilty pleas to the 1988 matter in evidence-in-chief, it was inevitable that his account of what had happened then and his reasons for pleading guilty would be tested in cross-examination by prosecuting counsel. We find nothing, having read the transcript of what took place, which suggests that matters were taken beyond what was appropriate in all the circumstances.
17. It is also suggested that prosecution counsel's closing speech laid undue emphasis on the 1988 matter. We have reviewed that and find that it was fair and accurate and did not contain inappropriate emphasis on the topic.
18. The summing-up on the issue was fair and accurate and that cannot give rise to any comment. Indeed, none is made.
19. We have shortly before this hearing received further papers from this applicant in which he asserts two further matters of appeal. He asserts that the jury were misled by the Crown in respect of photographic evidence. He asserts that the media coverage of this matter prevented him from receiving a fair trial. He has also attached a number of papers, apparently derived from the internet sites, together with comments of his own and materials which appear to have been available to him and his legal team at the time of the trial. None of those matters, raised under the cover of a letter to this court dated 23 January 2009, avail this applicant in any way.
20. This application is entirely without merit and the renewed application is refused.