A grandfather’s convictions for the sexual abuse of his granddaughter were upheld. There was no proper basis for rejecting the granddaughter’s original complaints, which had been detailed in her ABE interview and maintained throughout the trial, and the reliability of a retraction statement she made shortly after sentencing had to be rejected.
A Lucas direction would not have been appropriate, or helpful to the defendant. where an allegation of sexual assault turned wholly on the jury’s assessment of the respective credibility of the defendant and the complainant.
In a case in which the defendant failed to mention in interview a matter on which he later relied in his defence, but that matter was one which the jury might find to be a lie in any event, the judge was right to give a direction which combined elements of a Lucas direction and […]
