Indictments Act 1915

An indictment is a document formally accusing an individual of a criminal offence.[2] Indictments have been used in English law from at least 1362,[3] but the system was mainly developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During this period indictments became lengthy, confusing and highly technical, firstly because of the large number of new criminal offences created and secondly because of the back-and-forth between counsel for the defence and the prosecution, one attempting to spot loopholes in the indictment and the other attempting to close them.[4] A slight misspelling on the indictment rendered it invalid, and all errors were taken in favour of the prisoner.[5] An additional contributory factor was that the indictments were drafted by clerks of assize who were only paid once per set of indictments – if the indictment was not valid they had to write a new one for free, and they therefore had a vested interest in making them as detailed and complex as possible to avoid subtle flaws.[4] By the turn of the 20th century indictments were so complex that some barristers such as Archibald Bodkin had a practice specialising in writing them.[6]

The 19th century saw significant changes made to English criminal law in an attempt to simplify and modernise it, and Acts of Parliament reforming the law surrounding indictments were passed in 1826, 1828, 1848, 1849 and 1851. Only the Criminal Procedure Act 1851 dealt with indictments directly – the others simply amended the law around it – but it was not an unqualified success. J.F. Stephen wrote "In 1851 an Act was passed which went further in the way of removing technicalities but it did so by an enumeration of them so technical and minute that no one could possibly understand it who had not first acquainted himself with the technicalities which it was meant to abolish".[7] The Act did get rid of the idea that minor flaws in an indictment sunk it entirely, and Stephen later wrote that "a general impression has been produced that quibbles about indictments have come to an end".[7]

Nothing else was done to reform the law relating to indictments until the early 20th century. In 1913 Lord Haldane created a committee led by Mr Justice Avory to draft a bill reforming the law of indictments.[8] The draft bill was finished and introduced to Parliament by 1915, and it was given royal assent on 23 December 1915, coming into force on 1 April 1916 as the Indictments Act 1915.[8]

Despite being the first Act to amend the law relating to indictments in over 50 years, it at no point formally defines what an indictment is.[2]

Section 1 of the Act provides:

The rules contained in the First Schedule to this Act with respect to indictments shall have effect as if enacted in this Act, but those rules may be added to, varied, or annulled by further rules made . . . under this Act.[9]

The words "by the rule committee"[10] were repealed by section 19(4)(b) of the Criminal Justice Administration Act 1956.

The First Schedule to the Act was repealed by rule 2 of the Indictment Rules 1971.

The original format also allows the rules to be changed by the Rules Committee, something removed when the Act was amended by the Criminal Justice Administration Act 1956.[11] The original rules remained in force until 1971, when they were significantly reformed as the Indictment Rules 1971.[12]

This section created a rule committee made up of the Lord Chief Justice, a judge of the High Court of Justice, a clerk of the peace, a clerk of assize, a chairman of the quarter sessions, a recorder and "another person having experience in criminal procedure".[13] The committee had the power to suggest changes to the rules governing indictments, which would be placed before Parliament for forty days and passed as a Statutory Instrument if no objections were raised.[14] This was a more powerful version of the rules committee established by the Poor Prisoners' Defence Act 1903.[15] This section was repealed by the Criminal Justice Administration Act 1956 and the Courts Act 1971, and the rules are now amended by the Crown Court Rule Committee.

This section lays out what an indictment is required to contain. It must include a statement of the offence the defendant is being charged with "together with such particulars as may be necessary for giving reasonable information as to the nature of the charge."[1] The second part of this caused problems, because prosecution barristers would give the smallest amount of information possible to make the defence counsel's job more difficult. This was a significant problem, particularly in complex fraud cases where by the 1960s it was normal for the defence attorney to receive several thousand pages of witness statements, documents and pieces of evidence with only a vague, general indictment tying them together.[12]

This section allowed an indictment for both felonies and misdemeanors at once, but gave the defendant the right to treat both as if they were felonies and allowed him to challenge the jurors.[16] This was amended by the Criminal Law Act 1967 to remove the right to challenge jurors (and felonies were abolished).[17]

This section allows the court to amend an indictment at any point before trial, unless to do so would cause an "injustice".[18] It also allows them to postpone a trial for the purpose of amending the indictment and separate felonies and misdemeanors into different indictments.[19]

This section allowed the court to award costs to the prosecution for defective or unnecessarily lengthy indictments. It was repealed by section 31(6) of, and Schedule 2 to, the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.[20]

This section formerly provided that nothing in the Act prevents the challenge of an indictment if it fails to comply with the Vexatious Indictments Act 1859. This was amended by the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1933, and the section now provides that nothing in the Act prevents a challenge if the indictment fails to comply with "any other enactment".[21]

This section provides that similarly the Act does not intend to alter the jurisdiction of courts or places where an individual can be tried, and that the Act applies to all appeals against indictments.[22]

This section provides that the Act does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland, and that it came into force on 1 April 1916. It also amends and repeals several other bits of legislation with the Second Schedule, including some of the Quarter Sessions Act 1849.[23] This schedule was itself repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1927.

This Schedule contained rules relating to indictments, which could be cited as the Indictment rules 1915. It was repealed by rule 2 of the Indictment Rules 1971. The rules created by this Schedule are replaced by new rules under that instrument.

The rules set out the form an indictment was meant to take.[12][24]

Rule 1(2) provided that each sheet on which an indictment was set out was to be not more than 12 and not less than 6 inches in length, and not more than 14 and not less than 12 inches in width, and that if more than one sheet was required, that the sheets were to be fastened together in book form.

The Appendix to the Rules, as enacted, contained specimen forms of indictment for a number of offences:

• Form 1 - Murder
• Form 2 - Accessory after the fact to murder
• Form 3 - Manslaughter
• Form 4 - Rape
• Form 5
  • Count 1 - Wounding with intent, contrary to section 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861
  • Count 2 - Wounding, contrary to section 20 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861
• Form 6 - Cruelty to a child, contrary to section 12 of the Children Act 1908
• Form 7 - Larceny, contrary to section 67 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 8 - Robbery with violence, contrary to section 42 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 9
  • Count 1 - Larceny after a previous conviction
  • Count 2 - Receiving stolen goods, contrary to section 91 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 10 - Burglary and larceny, contrary to section 60 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 11 - Sending threatening letter, contrary to section 46 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 12 - Obtaining goods by false pretences, contrary to section 88 of the Larceny Act 1861
• Form 13 - Conspiracy to defraud
• Form 14
  • Count 1 - Arson, contrary to section 2 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861
  • Count 2 - Arson, contrary to section 3 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861
• Form 15 - A.B., arson, contrary to section 3 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861; C.D., accessory before the fact to same offence
• Form 16
  • Count 1 - Offence under section 35 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861
  • Count 2 - Obstructing railway, contrary to section 36 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861.
• Form 17 Damaging trees, contrary to section 22 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861
• Form 18
  • Count 1 - Forgery, contrary to section 2(1)(a) of the Forgery Act 1913
  • Count 2 - Uttering forged document, contrary to section 6(1)(2) of the Forgery Act 1913
• Form 19 - Uttering counterfeit coin, contrary to section 9 of the Coinage Offences Act 1861
• Form 20 - Uttering counterfeit coin, contrary to section 12 of the Coinage Offences Act 1861
• Form 21 - Perjury, contrary to section (1)(i) of the Perjury Act 1911
• Form 22 - Libel (i.e. defamatory libel)
• Form 23
  • Count 1 - Publishing obscene libel
  • Count 2 - Procuring obscene libel [or thing] with intent to sell or publish
• Form 24 - A.B., undischarged bankrupt, obtaining credit, contrary to section 155 (a) of the Bankruptcy Act 1914; C.D., being accessory to same offence
• Form 25 - Counts 1 and 2:Falsification of accounts, contrary to section 1 of the Falsification of Accounts Act 1875
• Form 26
  • Count 1 - Fraudulent conversion of property, contrary to section 1(1)(a) of the Larceny Act 1901
  • Count 2 - Fraudulent conversion of property, contrary to section 1(1)(b) of the Larceny Act 1901

By rule 4(5), the forms set out in the appendix to the rules or forms conforming thereto as nearly as may be had to be used in cases to which they were applicable, and in other cases forms to the like effect or conforming thereto as nearly as may be had to be used, the statement of offence and the particulars of offence being varied according to the circumstances in each case.

• "Indictments Act 1915" (PDF). Office of Public Sector Information.
• The Indictments Act 1915, as amended, from the National Archives
• Alexander, G. Glover (1916). "The Indictments Act, 1915". Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation. Cambridge University Press. 16 (2). ISSN 1479-5973.
• Birks, Peter (1995). Criminal justice & human rights: reshaping the criminal justice system, fraud and the criminal law, freedom of expression. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-826042-3.
• Winfield, P. H. (2007). Penal Reform in England. Read Books. ISBN 978-1-4067-4423-1.

• The full text of Indictments Act, 1915 at Wikisource