EXPERT EVIDENCE

The Criminal Cases Review Commission had been justified in refusing to refer the claimant’s two convictions for sexual offences to the Court of Appeal. The fresh evidence on which he had sought to rely did not give rise to a real possibility that the convictions would not be upheld.

A judge had not erred in refusing a late application to admit expert evidence as to an appellant’s intellectual ability to assess age at his trial for child sex offences. The assessment of age was not a particularly intellectual process and the appellant’s own evidence had been that he had no difficulty with judging age.

The fact that an intermediary had provided physical and emotional support to a vulnerable and distressed complainant during a rape trial did not result in a serious risk of unfairness to the defendant. Both counsel and the judge had warned the jury to approach the complainant’s evidence untrammelled by sympathy.

In a case where the defendant was accused of sexual offences against his daughter, the judge had been correct to refuse to admit the evidence of a retired psychiatrist and psychotherapist: her thesis of false memory syndrome lacked evidence to support it.

An offender seeking to challenge his conviction for indecent assault on the ground that his actions had been the result of hypoglycaemia caused by his type 1 diabetes could not admit fresh expert evidence where it failed to deal the question at issue, namely, whether he had only recalled the assaults during his police interview because his solicitors had taken him through the disclosure document beforehand.

A conviction for sexual assault was quashed in circumstances where it was not clear that the jury would have reached the same verdict had it been aware of fresh evidence, admitted on appeal, that the offender suffered from Asperger’s syndrome.

Convictions for five counts of rape and one count of indecent assault were safe, as there were no particular circumstances that required the judge to have given directions relating to the age of the victims, delay, an elaborated good character direction, or a recent complaint direction.

A conviction for offences of rape and indecent assault of a child was safe despite fresh evidence that questioned the basis for the expert medical evidence at trial, as it did not undermine the evidence and credibility of the victim.