Man found guilty of museum Olympic gold medal raid wins appeal against conviction over sheriff’s ‘material misdirection’

A man who was jailed after being found guilty of breaking into a museum and stealing a number of artefacts including Olympic gold medals has successfully appealed against his conviction.

 

The Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary quashed the conviction after ruling that the sheriff erred in failing to direct the jury that certain comments made by a co-accused outwith the presence of the appellant could not be used as evidence against him.

 

 

Lady Paton, Lady Clark of Calton and Lord Matthews heard that the appellant Stewart Pettigrew was tried at Dumfries Sheriff Court in September 2017 on an indictment which alleged that he, along with two co-accused Charlie Walker and “LBH”, broke into Dumfries Museum and Observatory and stole two gold medals, one from the 1924 Winter Games and the 2002 Winter Olympics curling gold medal belonging to Rhona Martin MBE, as well as a chain of office and a casket containing an historical scroll.

 

The appellant was subsequently found guilty by the jury in a majority verdict and sentenced to a period of imprisonment.

 

However, he appealed against conviction, claiming that he had suffered a “miscarriage of justice”.

 

The court was told that there was a joint minute in which it was agreed that on 30 April 2014 at around 10.10pm the museum was broken into and various items were stolen. 

 

At the material time the appellant had the use of a silver VW Golf and the co-accused Walker had previously stolen a silver Audi A3.

 

 

There was evidence that two days before the raid 28 a VW Golf, which could have been the one used by the appellant, turned onto Rotchell Road, where the museum was located, a few minutes before two men, one of whom was the co-accused Walker, entered the premises and conducted what appeared to be reconnaissance. 

 

In the evening of 30 April 2014 the appellant, who was wearing a distinctive jumper, Walker and another were seen associating in a Tesco car park, where a silver Golf and silver Audi A3 were parked close together, before two vehicles of the same description left the car park and travelled in convoy to Rotchell Road shortly before the break-in occurred.

 

CCTV footage from inside the museum showed one of the thieves wearing a jumper similar to the one worn by the appellant in the Tesco car park and minutes after the break-in a silver Audi A3 was seen coming from the direction of the locus travelling at high speed, and a silver Golf was later seen entering the caravan park where the appellant lived.

 

There was also evidence that the appellant travelled to Aylesbury on 2 May with two other men and tried to sell something to a business which traded in second hand jewellery, as well as other adminicles of evidence.

 

Further, there was an admission by Walker to his former girlfriend Lauren Davis, which was evidence against him but not the appellant.

 

During the speech to the jury the procurator fiscal depute said that “all the evidence you have heard in the case is available for you to consider” and referred to the evidence of Ms Davis, but the sheriff gave no direction to the effect that the evidence about what Walker told Davis, insofar as it was based on what Walker said outwith the presence of the appellant, was not evidence which the jury were entitled to take into account in respect of the appellant.

 

 

Counsel for the appellant submitted that the misdirection was a “material misdirection” in a case where the circumstantial evidence was not particularly strong and that the misdirection represented a “miscarriage of justice”.

 

But the advocate depute argued that the totality of the circumstantial evidence was “overwhelming” against the appellant and that there was no miscarriage of justice.

 

Delivering the opinion of the court, Lady Clark of Calton said: “In considering whether the misdirection resulted in a miscarriage of justice, we note that the evidence of Lauren Davis was given prominence and the jury had a transcript of her call to the police as well as her oral evidence. It was an important breakthrough in the police investigation and was relied on in the speech to the jury by the procurator fiscal depute. The circumstantial evidence which was capable of incriminating the appellant was diffuse and capable of a number of different interpretations. 

 

“We consider that in the context of the circumstantial evidence in this case, the evidence of Lauren Davis about admissions by Walker would have been likely to have played an important part of the deliberations by the jury. Clear directions were required about what the jury required to do with her evidence in relation to the appellant. We do not accept that the evidence in this case was overwhelming or totally compelling in relation to the appellant and we note that the jury verdict was by a majority.

 

“For these reasons, we cannot be satisfied that, if the jury had been properly directed, there was no real possibility that the verdict against the appellant would have been different. We are of the opinion therefore that the appeal should be allowed in respect of this ground of appeal…We therefore allow the appeal and quash the conviction.”