Justices — Information — Whether validly laid — Prosecutor faxing information to magistrates’ court on Friday — Six-month time limit expiring on that day — Court stamping information as received on following Monday — Whether proceedings “instituted” when information laid — Whether information laid within six-month time limit — Forestry Act 1967 s17(2)

Rockall v Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [2007] EWHC 614

QBD: Latham LJ and Davis J: 22 March 2007

Proceedings were instituted under s 17(2) of the Forestry Act 1967 when an information was laid and it was the laying of the information that determined whether time limits had been met. If it could properly be established by inference or otherwise that an information had been transmitted to a magistrates’ court fax machine within time that was sufficient to constitute the laying of an information.

Latham LJ and Davis J so held in the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court upon the appeal by way of case stated of the defendant, Michael John Rockall, against his conviction by the justices for the county of Suffolk for felling trees without a licence, contrary to s17(1) of the Forestry Act 1967. The defendant appealed on the grounds that the justices did not have jurisdiction to hear the summons against him because the proceedings had not been commenced in time, having been faxed to the court office on the last day, which was a Friday, of the six-month period allowed for the institution of proceedings under s 17(2). The information was not stamped as received until the following Monday. The defendant argued that proceedings were only instituted under s17(2) when the justices had had an opportunity to consider the information and a summons had been issued, and that the prosecutor had to establish that the fax had been received at the magistrates’ court, which he had not done.

Latham LJ, giving the judgment of the court, said that an informant could exercise control over the time at which he laid an information but had no control over the issue of a summons or any other form of process. As a matter of principle therefore the laying of the information was the act which should determine whether or not the time limit had been met. Furthermore the essential concept running through the authorities was that an information should be made available to the justices or the clerk to the justices within time. As far as fax or other electronic means were concerned that would be when it could properly be inferred that the information was retrievable, whether retrieved in fact or not. The evidence upon which the justices had relied comprised fax headings and the fax transmission sheets. In the absence of any contrary evidence that would be sufficient to justify the inference that the information had been made available.

Appearances: David Lamming (Gotelee & Goldsmith, Ipswich) for the defendant; Ian Mann (DEFRA legal department) for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Reported by: Jessica Giles, solicitor