Wayne Cleaver reverses terminating ruling in Court of Appeal

R v A [2020] EWCA Crim 407 – the defendant was indicted with Causing Death by Dangerous Driving having parked her car on the hard shoulder of a motorway where it was struck by another vehicle with fatal consequences. At the close of the prosecution case the Trial Judge ruled there was no case to answer on the discrete issue of causation. The defence had argued that the collision by a third party was a novus actus breaking the chain of causation. The prosecution appealed the ruling under Section 58 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Court of Appeal, concurring with Mr Cleaver’s submissions, delivered a judgement reversing the Trial Judge and directing that the case be re-tried. The complex legal issue of causation in cases of this type was further clarified in the judgement of Simon LJ , now reported in the Weekly Law Reports with the citation above.