R v Perry (Appellant)

Hearing listed

Case summary
Linked cases
Appeal

Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2024/0057

Parties

Appellant(s)

Fionnghuale Mary Teresa Dympha Perry

Respondent(s)

Public Prosecution Service

(1) Ministry of Justice (2) Advocate General for Northern Ireland

Issue

The issues in this appeal can be grouped into three questions: (1) As certified by the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland, is the interpretation of a defence statement provided under Part 1 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 a question of law for the trial judge? (2) Was the search of the appellant’s property lawful and if not what are the consequences of that unlawfulness? (3) Does the application to the appellant of the sentencing regime provided for by article 15A of the Terorism Act 2002 breach Article 7 of the European Convention of Human Rights?

Facts

On 15 March 2023, following a non-jury trial, the appellant was convicted of a single count of collecting or making a record of information likely to be useful to a terrorist contrary to section 58(1)(a) of the Terrorism Act 2000. She was subsequently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The prosecution’s case was that the offending material comprised a series of manuscript notes authored by the appellant and compiled in a form of code in an attempt to obscure their meaning and enhance their utility. The information, which concerned the recovery of munitions and explosives from Kevin Nolan and the associated surveillance by MI5, was said to be capable of providing practical assistance to terrorists in making decisions about where to store munitions or explosives in the future, which persons should be selected for this purpose, whether any person had previously provided information to the security forces, whether surveillance had placed any role in previous detections and whether the accounts provided by persons interviewed by the police in consequence were reliable. The appellant defended the charges on the basis that she is a writer, commentator, journalist, political campaigner, activist and member of the political group Saoradh which is critical of the current peace process and the settlements which have followed from it. She says that she often writes about alleged nefarious activities by MI5 agents in Northern Ireland, including alleged harassment and intimidation of private citizens. She said that the material in question reflected handwritten copies of information she received from an anonymous third party through her letterbox. The appellant appealed conviction and sentence to the Court of Appeal on the basis that: (1) the search of her property was unlawful so that the trial judge should have exercised discretion to exclude the material obtained from it; (2) there was no case to answer; (3) the trial judge wrongly accorded too much weight to the differences between the appellant’s account in her defence statement and the account she gave during police interviews. The Court of Appeal dismissed her appeal, and she now appeals to the Supreme Court.