Court proceedings (FOI)

Request

In January 2020 it was announced that the Connétable of St John, Mr Christopher Taylor had been charged with dangerous driving for an incident that allegedly occurred in June 2019, a charge he denied.

There was an adjournment of the case following that announcement, however there does not appear to have been any further announcement in this case.

Can you please provide a full case history, judgment and parties to that judgement, including the defence lawyer and the state prosecutor.

If the case has been thrown out please provide details of the reasoning for such action.

Response

It is the court which actively manages disclosure of information about proceedings in a particular matter in order to ensure in each case there is the correct balance between the openness of the court process and the overriding objective of ensuring that justice is done through a fair trial. The information being requested is court information and therefore absolutely exempt from supply in response to a Freedom of Information request by virtue of Article 24 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 and we decline to supply the information in response to this request.

In the normal course of events the court will publicise in advance dates for any hearing of a matter and make public its decision and any judgment made. Court lists are published on the www.gov.je site at the following link:

Court lists: Royal Court, Petty Debts and Magistrate's Court

Article applied

Article 24 Court information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is held by a scheduled public authority only by virtue of being contained in a document –

(a) filed with, or otherwise placed in the custody of, a court; or

(b) served upon, or by, the scheduled public authority,

in proceedings in a particular cause or matter.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is held by a scheduled public authority only by virtue of being contained in a document created by –

(a) a court; or

(b) a member of the administrative staff of a court,

in proceedings in a particular cause or matter.

(3) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is held by a scheduled public authority only by virtue of being contained in a document –

(a) placed in the custody of; or

(b) created by,

a person conducting an inquiry or arbitration, for the purposes of the inquiry or arbitration.

(4) In this Article –

“arbitration” means arbitration to which Part 2 of the Arbitration (Jersey) Law 1998[6] applies;

“court” includes any tribunal in which legal proceedings may be brought;

“inquiry” means an inquiry or a hearing held under an enactment;

“proceedings in a particular cause or matter” includes an inquest or post-mortem examination.