In an indecent assault trial which turned on the comparative credibility of the complainant and the defendant, the judge should have given a full good-character direction in respect of the defendant. His failure to do so, coupled with his direction that the jury should treat the unchallenged evidence of the defendant’s character witnesses with caution, […]
Convictions for rape and indecent assault were deemed unsafe where a judge had failed to give a jury clear directions as to whether, and if so how, they could rely on the evidence of each victim when considering the allegations made by the other.
A custodial sentence of 9 years and 6 months and a further probation period of one year imposed on a 91-year-old former monk for historical offences of indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery was unduly lenient, and was replaced with a custodial term of 12 years.
The jury directions given at the trial of a well-known publicist for historical sexual offences had not been inadequate or unfair, and his conviction for indecent assault was safe.
A judge had been entitled to refuse severance of an indictment, meaning that an offender was tried for historic and recent counts of child sexual offences at the same time. The Criminal Procedure Rules 2015 r.3.21(4)(a) had removed the technical barriers to joinder in appropriate cases: where evidence on one count would be properly admissible […]
A sentence of three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment imposed on an offender for historic offences of buggery and indecent assault on a fellow resident at a children’s home was unduly lenient. The offender satisfied the dangerousness criteria and a sentence of five years and ten months’ imprisonment with a three-year extension period was appropriate.
Concurrent sentences of two years’ imprisonment for historic offences of indecent assault and indecency with a child committed against the offender’s sister when he was aged 14-16 were reduced to concurrent one-year sentences. The offender, now over 70, was gravely ill and nearing the end of his life, and the original sentence was, in justice […]
The court upheld an offender’s convictions for indecent assault and attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm committed against his younger brother when they were both under 18. It could not be said that the manner in which the trial was conducted by the offender’s own counsel was so flawed as to render his conviction unsafe.
A total sentence of 13 years and two months’ imprisonment imposed following a trial of a step-father for four historic sexual offences against his step-daughter was manifestly excessive where the judge had both ordered all sentences to run consecutively, as well as imposing sentences at the higher end of the scale. It was replaced with […]
A conviction for sexual offences against a child was safe, as medical evidence adduced as fresh had not permitted confident review of a previous diagnosis so as to describe it as ill-founded; taken at its highest it neither supported nor refuted the allegations against the offender. The defence was still that any abuse was perpetrated […]
