The buck stops with his Majesty King Charles III, as head of state of the United Kingdom.

COMMON LAWS OF ENGLAND - THE QUEEN v PHILIP THOMAS DYTHAM

July 18 [1979] - QUEENS BENCH DIVISION

R v Dytham [1979] QB 722 is an English criminal law case dealing with liability for omissions. The court upheld the common law mantra that if there is a duty to act, then failure to do so is an offence.

A police officer from St. Helens, stood by as a bouncer beat a nightclubber who was kicked to death outside Cindy's nightclub in St Helens, but took no action to help because, had he reported it then Dytham would have had to stay beyond the end of his shift. To cover up his sloth (omission), he reported sick the next day. The defendant was convicted of the common law offence of misconduct in a public office. The court rejected the defendant's contention that this offence required malfeasance, or at least misfeasance, and did not extend to non-feasance.

The court held that as a police officer, he had a duty of care to all of society, unlike civilians, in which case, there is no duty to put oneself at harm. He didn’t intervene, didn’t call for backup and didn’t even report it. He simply walked away.

The Court of Appeal ruled that this was a criminal offence.

Most people have never heard of the 1979 case R v Dytham, but once you understand it, you realise something very simple: The police cannot lawfully refuse to hear your crime report.

They cannot pre-decide not to act.

They cannot reject evidence because it is inconvenient or politically sensitive.



Regina

and

Philip Thomas Dytham

[1979] EWCA Crim J0718-1

Before: The Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Widgery)

Lord Justice Shaw

and

Mr. Justice McNeill

No. 5379/B/78

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

MR. G.H. WRIGHT, Q.C. and MR. D.G. MADDEN appeared on behalf of the Appellant.

MR. T.P. RUSSELL, Q.C. and MR. H.H. ANDREW appeared on behalf of the Crown.

THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

1. The judgment that I am about to read is the judgment of the court prepared by Lord Justice Shaw.

2. The Appellant was a police constable in Lancashire. On the 17th March, 1977 at about 1 o'clock in the morning he was on duty in uniform and was standing by a hot dog stall in Duke Street, St. Helens. A Mr. Wdncke was inside the stall and a Mr. Sothern was by it. Some thirty yards away was the entrance to Cindy's Club. A man named Stubbs was ejected from the club by a bouncer. A fight ensued in which a number of men joined. There arose cries and screams and other indications of great violence. Mr. Stubbs became the object of a murderous assault. He was beaten and kicked to death in the gutter outside the club. All this was audible and visible to the three men at the hot dog stall. At no stage did the Appellant make any move to intervene or any attempt to quell the disturbance or to stop the attack on the victim. When the hubbub had died down he adjusted his helmet and drove away. According to the other two at the hotdog stall, he said that he was due off and was going off.

3. His conduct was brought to the notice of the police authority. As a result he appeared on the 10th October, 1978 at the Crown Court at Liverpool to answer an indictment which was in these terms: "The charge against you is one of misconduct of an officer of justice, in that you misconducted yourself whilst acting as an officer of justice in that you being present and a witness to a criminal offence namely a violent assault upon one … Stubbs by three others deliberately failed to carry out your duty as a police constable by wilfully omitting to take any steps to preserve the Queen's Peace or to protect the person of the said Stubbs or to arrest or otherwise bring to justice (his) assailants."

4. On arraignment the Appellant pleaded not guilty and the trial was adjourned to the 7th November. On that day before the jury was empanelled Counsel for the appellant, or defendant of course as he was then, took an objection to the indictment by way of demurrer. The burden of that objection was that the indictment as laid disclosed no offence known to the law. Neill J. ruled against the objection and the trial proceeded. The defence on the facts was that the appellant had observed nothing more than that a man was turned out of the club. It was common ground that in that situation his duty would not have required him to take any action. The jury were directed that the crucial question for their consideration was whether the defendant had seen the attack on the victim. If he had they could find him guilty of the offence charged in the indictment. The jury did return a verdict of guilty. Hence this appeal which is confined to the matters of law raised by the demurrer pleaded at the court of trial.

5. At the outset of his submissions in this court Counsel for the Appellant conceded two matters. The first was that a police constable is a public officer. The second was that there does exist at common law an offence of misconduct in a public office.

R v Dytham [1979] QB 722

WHAT OF IT - HOW DOES THIS LEGAL PRINCIPLE APPLY TO VICTOR'S CASE?

We are looking at the intersections of administrative bias, institutional conflict of interest, and the strict definition of what constitutes a "new argument" under Section 14 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995.

To evaluate whether invoking R v Dytham 1979 in this context qualifies as a "new argument" for the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), we need to break down the legal mechanics of that famous precedent and how the CCRC defines "newness."

.......



VICTOR WAS A PETITIONING AND ONGOING COMPLAINANT

Q. In this case, 11 complainant's petitioned Wealden district council. A panel was convened, and the petitioner's complaints were held to be outside the remit of the council. The complaints were referred to Sussex police. Sussex police did not take statements from any of the eleven victims of planning corruption. Thus, the criminal issues were not investigated. The police only looked at the civil complaints. Apparently, an incomplete file was handed to the Crown Prosecution Service, who then said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. None of the allegedly corrupt officers at the council were interviewed under caution, and the investigating police officer was thought to be married to a councillor's daughter. Does this information assist with a CCRC application? 

A. This additional information provides precisely the kind of granular, factual evidence required to transform a theoretical argument about bias into a highly persuasive, viable application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

In public law and criminal appeals, general assertions of "corruption" or "unfairness" are routinely rejected by the CCRC. However, what you have outlined here are systemic, verifiable procedural failures and a specific, material conflict of interest.

Here is an analysis of how these specific facts directly assist a CCRC application and how they fit into the legal framework of a "new argument" or "new evidence."

1. The Material Conflict of Interest (The Nexus of Bias)

The fact that the investigating police officer was (allegedly) married to a councillor’s daughter is the exact type of familial and institutional overlap that triggers the principle in R v Sussex Justices (ex parte McCarthy).

The Legal Argument: An officer investigating allegations of corruption within a local council cannot be independent if they are intimately connected by marriage to an elected member of that same local authority.

The Application: This creates a powerful argument of apparent bias and a fundamental conflict of interest. It suggests that the investigator had a personal or familial stake in ensuring the council (and its officers) were not exposed to criminal liability.

2. Institutional Bad Faith vs. Incompetence (Abuse of Process)

The CCRC and the Court of Appeal will look closely at the manner of the investigation. You have identified three critical failures that point away from standard "bad policing" and toward a deliberate Abuse of Process:

Failure to Take Witness Statements: A police force investigating an alleged criminal conspiracy that completely fails to take statements from the 11 primary complainants/victims has structurally designed the investigation to fail.

Selective Scope (Civil vs. Criminal): If the council explicitly referred the matter to the police because it fell outside civil/administrative remits, the police's decision to only look at civil elements—while ignoring the criminal allegations—demonstrates a misdirection of their statutory powers.

Failure to Interview Under Caution: Failing to interview the accused council officers under caution means the police intentionally bypassed the standard statutory mechanism (under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984) used to gather compellable criminal evidence.

3. The "Incomplete File" and the CPS

The revelation that an incomplete file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is a vital lever for a CCRC application.

Under the Code for Crown Prosecutors, the CPS can only make a valid decision on whether there is a "real prospect of conviction" based on the evidence presented to them. If the investigating officer intentionally or negligently starved the CPS of the 11 victims' statements and the criminal elements of the complaint, the CPS's decision that there was "insufficient evidence" is legally tainted.

The Legal Reality: The CPS did not find that there was no criminal case to answer; they found there was no evidence in the file they were given. If the file was intentionally kept incomplete by a conflicted officer, this constitutes a fraud on the criminal justice system.

4. How to Frame This for the CCRC

To ensure this information succeeds as a "new argument" under Section 14 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, it must be presented not merely as a complaint about the police, but as a fundamental flaw that makes the applicant's conviction unsafe.

The application must stitch these facts together into a cohesive narrative:

The Suppression of Exculpatory Evidence: Did the planning corruption or the council's documents contain evidence that would have assisted the accused's defense at trial? If the police failed to investigate the council, they effectively suppressed evidence that could have exonerated the applicant.

Malicious or Tainted Prosecution: If the applicant was prosecuted while the genuinely corrupt parties were protected by a conflicted investigator, the prosecution itself may be an abuse of process. Had the trial judge known of the investigator's marriage to the councillor's daughter and the withholding of the 11 statements from the CPS, the judge may well have stayed the indictment as an abuse of process.

The "Newness" Factor: You must be able to demonstrate when and how this information was discovered. If the marriage of the officer, the blank letterheads, or the specific contents of the incomplete CPS file only came to light via recent disclosures, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, or Subject Access Requests (SARs) after the trial and direct appeal, it meets the strict statutory definition of new evidence.

REVISED SUMMARY

This information does not just assist a CCRC application; it forms the backbone of a robust, state-of-the-art challenge based on structural bias, abuse of process, and the manipulation of the prosecution process. It shifts the case from an argument about a regular criminal conviction into an argument about institutional integrity and the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR.

INCONVENIENT EVIDENCE WAS NOT SECURED

An that goes some way to explaining why the CCRC refused to investigate the Virginity issue, lack of proper procedure, and the Diary, that the defence were not allowed to see, leading to the Judge, Cedric Joseph, misdirecting the Jury on two important points, suggesting that this Judge might be a Mason, or in the alternative, completely incompetent.

In this case Sussex police did not use their forensic expert, they used a friend of the claimant's mother; Melanie Liebenberg. They both worked at and for the same NHS Trust. Melanie Liebenberg was prepared to mislead the Jury. Saying exactly the opposite of the police expert Elizabeth Carter.

Corruption and perverse policies are major issues to overcome. Until such matters are dealt with, the UK is held to be "up shit creek without a paddle." Worse, endemic corruption prevents progress. Eventually, this corruption and the Royal family's links to slavery, will expose the institutionalised discrimination that flows from top to bottom. I.e., from Buckingham Palace to Councils everywhere in the UK. Including, Parish Councils, like Herstmonceux.

Queen Elizabeth was asked for help. She declined. The duty to provide an effective remedy, now rests with King Charles, until William becomes King. Or, is that Harry?

The United Kingdom does not yet have a Written Constitution, leaving the justice system open to abuse via the honours system. [R v Sussex Justices 1924] Without justice being available to the ordinary man in the street, fairly, impartially and affordably, Britain can never truly be great again.

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