R (Worsley) v Tameside Magistrates' Court: conviction quashed after bench announced verdict before closing speeches

A magistrates' bench that announced a guilty verdict and moved to sentencing before hearing any closing submissions committed a serious procedural failing that renders the conviction unsustainable, the Administrative Court has held, quashing the conviction and remitting the case for retrial.

In R (Worsley) v Tameside Magistrates' Court [2026] EWHC 1789 (Admin), handed down on 16 July 2026, Mrs Justice Hill allowed a rolled-up judicial review of the court's refusal to state a case, granting permission on both grounds and answering the two stated questions herself under the Skelton procedure.

Jake Worsley was convicted on 30 May 2025 of failing to provide a specimen of blood contrary to section 7(6) of the Road Traffic Act 1988, following a collision in Bolton in December 2022 in which his leg was impaled by a metal pole. He had been taken to hospital, where PC Weaver conducted the MGDD/C procedure.

After the bench refused a section 78 application and defence counsel closed his case without calling evidence, the chair, without conferring with colleagues, announced the matter proven and said the court would move to sentencing. The trainee legal adviser intervened to remind the bench that closing submissions had not been heard. An apology followed, submissions were made, and the claimant was convicted.

Hill J held the right of a defendant to address the court at the close of evidence has been clear since at least 1865 and is enshrined in Crim PR 24.3(3)(i). Applying Porter v Magill, she endorsed the formulation of Thomas Williams for the CPS, who accepted the ground: a fair-minded and informed observer in the public gallery would have found it difficult to see how the bench could keep an open mind after prematurely announcing a conclusion about guilt. The failing was akin to those in R v Young, ex p Thompson and ex p Gale.

The refusal to state a case attracted separate criticism. It appears to have been taken by the trainee legal adviser without reference to the justices, which Hill J observed was itself procedurally improper, section 111 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 requiring the application to be made to and determined by the justices. His reasoning that there had been no suggestion the evidence was obtained oppressively, improperly or unfairly was a material error, that being precisely what defence counsel had argued. Reliance on the claimant's decision not to give evidence, and on the availability of a retrial by consent, was irrelevant. Applying Mildenhall, the application was far from futile, misconceived, hopeless or academic.

The exclusion ground failed on its merits. Darren Finnegan, instructed by Joe Egan Solicitors, argued that PC Weaver had usurped the role of the treating doctor by dismissing the claimant's statement that he was concussed rather than referring it to Dr Godfrey, whose consent had been obtained 56 minutes earlier, placing the case on all fours with Butler and Townson.

Hill J accepted these were careful and credible arguments, but found a potentially persuasive alternative: that Butler was factually unusual, that a doctor in an emergency department receiving a road traffic casualty would be particularly astute to head injuries, and that the claimant had already failed to provide by the time concussion was mentioned. Inconsistencies between the officer's statements and body-worn footage were matters for cross-examination, as Tandey contemplates. The section 78 decision was evaluative and not irrational.

The matter was remitted, with Hill J agreeing that any retrial should be heard by a District Judge (Magistrates' Courts). The claimant's application for costs out of Central Funds is referred to a Divisional Court.