R v Robb [1991] 93 Cr

Facts of the case:

The appellant was involved in the abduction of a wealthy Arab businessman. It was
alleged that he had made telephone calls to the victim's wife demanding a ransom
and to a cab company to arrange for its collection. All but one of these telephone
calls were tape-recorded and the Crown sought to adduce expert evidence, to
establish that the appellant was the man who had made the telephone calls, and
evidence of police officers who had accompanied the appellant to London, that they
recognised the voice on the tapes as being that of the appellant. At the trial, the
defence submitted that this evidence ought to be excluded. In the case of the expert,
because he relied upon auditory techniques alone and this was not accepted by
orthodox professional opinion as being sufficient so as to be reliable, and in the case
of the police officers, because a public policy exception applying to purported
identification which disallowed evidence based on familiarity gained in the course of
a police investigation, should equally apply to purported recognition. The judge
rejected these submissions and the appellant was convicted. He appealed, repeating
the submissions made at trial.


Held:

The expert was entitled to be regarded as a phonetician well qualified by academic
training and practical experience to express an opinion on voice identification.
Although his reliance on the auditory technique had to be regarded as representing a
minority view in his profession, he had reasons for his preference and on the facts of
the case he was not shown to be wrong.

The authorities cited in support for the use of the public policy exception, related to
cases of purported identification as opposed to purported recognition. In the instant
case, the police officers were not providing expert evidence of identification but were
instead testifying as witnesses of fact, that they recognised the voice on the tapes as
being that of the man whom they had accompanied, this was crucially different. The
public policy exception could not found an unqualified rule of law. What it properly
could do, in any case where police officers' evidence of recognition appeared
suspect or procured for ulterior motives, or in any case where unfair advantage had
been taken of the Defendant to strengthen the case against him, was provide
powerful grounds for excluding the evidence under s 78(1) of the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act 1984. It had therefore been open to the judge to admit the evidence
and on the facts none of the grounds, mentioned as justifying exclusion under s
78(1) existed. The judge's admission of the evidence was not contrary to law and
good practice. The appeal would be dismissed

A phonetician had identified the appellants voice using an auditory technique which
was regarded by orthodox professional opinion as unreliable unless supplemented
and verified by acoustic analysis, but this court refused to hold that the expert
evidence was inadmissible. Having referred to Silverlock [1894] 2 QB 766 Bingham
LJ said that the two essential questions are

whether study and experience will give a witnesss opinion an authority which the
opinion of one not so qualified will lack,

and (if so)

whether the witness in question is skilled and has adequate knowledge.

He continued If these conditions are met the evidence of the witness is in law
admissible, although the weight to be attached to his opinion must of course be
assessed by the tribunal of fact