The applicant, Neville Morris, is a United Kingdom citizen, born in 1939, who at the time of lodging his application was detained at HM Prison Oxford. On 28 August 1980 the applicant was convicted by the Reading Crown Court of conspiracy to supply heroin and was sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment. Following this conviction the second applicant was advised by his counsel that the Court of Appeal would be unlikely to interfere with the exercise of the trial judge’s discretion since he had applied the law correctly.
The applicant nevertheless drafted his own grounds of appeal, which were then rendered more comprehensively by his solicitor. On May 20 1981 the applicant’s application for leave to appeal was refused, together with the ancillary applications, by a single judge, who observed that there were “no reasons to justify granting (the applicant) leave to appeal”. The applicant renewed his application to the Full Court of Appeal. On 27 October 1981 the Full Court of Appeal refused the application in the applicant’s absence and ordered that 56 days of the period spent by him awaiting the determination of his application for leave to appeal should not count towards his sentence.
The applicant complains that the loss of time orders made by the Court of Appeal resulted in a deprivation of liberty contrary to Art. 5 of the Convention and that the proceedings were unfair because they were not permitted to be present before the Court. He also complains that the loss of time procedure is discriminatory, contrary to Art. 14 of the Convention.
Citation: Morris v the United Kingdom (App no 9818/82) ECHR 2 March 1987
(from the official press-release prepared by the Registry Office of the European Court of Human Rights)