NO CASE TO ANSWER

There was no basis on which to extend time to allow an offender to appeal against his convictions for rape, sexual assault, and causing or inciting a four-year-old child to engage in sexual activity. Although the normal trial process had had to be modified in a number of ways because of the victim’s age, the judge had taken great care to ensure that the trial was fair.

A rape victim’s evidence that she had little memory of the events was not sufficient for the judge to remove the case from the jury. There had been sufficient evidence for the jury to decide whether the victim had consented.

It had been open to a jury to be satisfied on the evidence that alleged historic child sexual abuse had continued into the period on the indictment. It was not open to the Court of Appeal to review the evidence and come to a different conclusion.

In a trial concerning conspiracy to rape a child under 13, the judge, when considering a submission of no case to answer, had failed to consider whether a reasonable jury could be entitled to infer that the offenders intended to carry out the agreement. Taking the prosecution evidence at its highest, no reasonable jury could infer that the offenders had intended to carry out the agreement.

Although a judge’s summing up and jury directions could have been more detailed and better tailored to the facts, they were not so deficient as to affect the safety of a conviction for the commission of sexual offences.

Convictions for rape, kidnap and doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice were safe despite a delay of several years between the allegations and the trial. The trial judge had been right to refuse a submission of no case to answer and had clearly directed the jury on the possible prejudice caused to the offenders by the delay.

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.