Aaron Bacchus

Aaron Bacchus was convicted of robbery after a group of men entered a woman’s flat through a window and stole her watch. The victim of the robbery had seen the men arrive in a red car, she fled from her flat and sought help from a neighbour. When she saw the men leaving in the red car she noted down the registration number. At an identification parade she did not identify the appellant or one of his co-accused (although the co-accused’s fingerprints were found on the windowframe of the flat and the co-accused admitted presence at the scene). There was CCTV evidence showing the arrival of five men in the car, and to establish that Bacchus was one of the robbers the Crown relied on expert evidence comparing the video of the men arriving in the car with footage from other robberies at approximate times at which the appellant was present. The prosecution accepted that without this expert evidence there would not have been a sufficient case to go before a jury, and they concluded that they could not be sure of the reliability of the evidence. The court concluded that the unreliability of this evidence meant the conviction was unsafe and the appeal was allowed.