FAMILIAL CHILD SEX OFFENCES

A judge’s decision to stay a prosecution as an abuse of process on the basis of a failure by the prosecution to properly pursue a line of enquiry when investigating allegations of sexual assault was wrong in principle and did not constitute a reasonable exercise of his discretion.

It was best practice for a judge to direct a jury before the cross-examination of a vulnerable witness that limitations had been placed on the defence counsel and to explain after the cross-examination the type of issues which the defendant would have wished to explore in further detail. Such directions should be repeated in the summing up.

A total sentence of 16 years’ imprisonment was increased to 20 years where a judge had been wrongly advised that his sentencing powers in relation to offences of buggery committed when the offender was under 18 were limited to 12 months’ imprisonment.

A sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment imposed for 12 counts of committing indecent assault was reduced to 12 years in the light of the maximum sentence for each offence, the sentencing guidelines, the offender’s age and disability, and the fact that for a historic offence he would serve two-thirds of his sentence in custody.

A sentence of six years’ imprisonment imposed following a guilty plea to an offence of assault on a child by penetration was manifestly excessive as, despite the abuse of a position of trust, the penetration had been minimal and there had been no physical harm caused to the two-year-old victim.

A judge had not erred in law in rejecting an offender’s submission of no case to answer to four counts of rape and two counts of sexual assault, all of a child aged under 13, in circumstances where, despite inconsistencies in the victim’s evidence, through the victim’s various accounts the judge had a clear basis on which to form his conclusion that, applying the principles established in R. v Galbraith (George Charles) [1981] 1 W.L.R. 1039, it was for the jury and not for him to assess the victim’s credibility.

There might be occasions, in which a sexual offences prevention order under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 s.104 was made to protect a child of a defendant, where the family court’s jurisdiction should be reflected in the order because of the additional flexibility it provided. In the circumstances a s.104 order was varied to provide that a father, who had abused his daughter, was prohibited from seeing his son only until the son reached the age of 16.