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25 October 2018 / Victor Smith
Issue: 7814 / Categories: Features , Criminal
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Who’s in the dock? Pt 2

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In his second article on the challenges of amending a defendant’s name, Victor Smith considers the distinction between entities that are truly different & the same defendant merely misnamed

Part one of this mini-series on amending a defendant’s name traced the origins of the principle that a charge cannot be amended by substituting one defendant for another (see ‘Who’s in the dock?’, NLJ, 19 October 2018, p11): this follow-up article considers a case in which a named entity was lawfully replaced.

Significance of legal entity

R (Platinum Crown Investments Ltd) v North East Essex Magistrates’ Court and Colchester Borough Council [2017] EWHC 2761 (Admin), (2018) 182 JP 104, [2017] All ER (D) 170 (Oct) (‘ Platinum ’), reinforces the distinction between a mistake as to the defendant’s identity, which cannot be amended, and a misstatement of the defendant’s name, which can be amended, and endorses the view in R (Essence Bars (London) Limited) v Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court and Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames [2016] EWCA Civ 63, (2017) 181

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