A man accused of using a racial slur was acquitted in court because the alleged offence took place on a bus, and its precise location could not be determined.
The Magistrate’s Court acquitted the man of a single charge of behaving in a disorderly manner in September last year.
The Law Officers appealed the acquittal but that move failed and the acquittal has been upheld because they didn’t change the wording of the charge which specified he had committed the alleged offence on Route de Saumarez in the Castel.
As the incident had occurred on board the no. 42 bus, the judge said the defendant could not be found guilty.
Both the man’s original trial, and the appeal, were held to determine whether he had ‘behaved in a disorderly manner’ but because the charge sheet specified the location of the incident, which happened in October 2023, the court could only consider whether it had happened at that exact location.
The man denied disorderly behaviour, and further denied that he had uttered a racial slur against a woman and her child who were also travelling on the no. 42 bus along with their husband/father.
He had claimed it was a case of mistaken identity as he had thought he knew the woman and her child. Defence Advocate Chris Green told the original trial judge that the defendant had called the woman and her child ‘…doppelgangers’ because he thought they looked like someone else, rather than inferring that all Chinese people look alike.
CCTV of the incident was played to the court, with both the woman and her husband giving evidence during the trial.
The court heard that there was a lack of evidence to show exactly where the events had taken place along the bus route though.
In hearing the trial, the Magistrate had said that the court’s decision had to be based on the wording of the charge that the Law Officers had prosecuted the man with.
“The charge doesn’t read on the No.42 bus, it reads at a specific location,
namely Route de Saumarez, alleging that that is a public place, a key element of the
charge. I have heard no evidence whatsoever that the incident took place on Route de
Saumarez in the Castel and therefore I have no choice other than to acquit Mr XXX.”
In hearing the appeal against the acquittal, Judge Catherine Fooks agreed with the original trial judge and said that as the Law Officers had not sought to amend the charge, then the original verdict had to stand.
“It is for the Prosecution to stay alert to variances and to be ready to apply to amend if there is a material defect,” she concluded in her judgment published this month.