Top Rape Defence Barrister

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.

While a judge’s summing-up could have been more clearly expressed, it was not confusing, did not advocate the prosecution case and it did not render the trial unfair. Trial judges were reminded of the guidance and draft directions contained in the Crown Court Compendium. Those directions provided judges with an invaluable resource which, when adapted […]

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 […]

A jury’s findings on a trial of the facts that a defendant with severe learning difficulties who was unfit to plead had committed two offences of rape were safe, notwithstanding the fact that an extract of the defendant’s police interview had been wrongly admitted as evidence.

A trial judge had a wide discretion as to what warning, if any, he gave to a jury in relation to a witness’s alleged unreliability. In the instant case, the judge had given an adequate and appropriate warning to the jury with regard to the inconsistencies in the complainant’s evidence and an admitted lie, and […]

A conviction was quashed where credibility had been the key issue in a sexual offences case and the judge had given an unclear good character direction that was tantamount to a bad character direction.

Deficiencies in a judge’s summing up were such as to render a conviction for historic child sex offences unsafe.