PREJUDICE

Despite the absence of certain evidence at trial, the appellant’s convictions for sexual assault and rape of his half-sister were safe, because the totality of the trial process including the directions given and the summing up was fair.

A judge had been entitled to refuse severance of an indictment, meaning that an offender was tried for historic and recent counts of child sexual offences at the same time. The Criminal Procedure Rules 2015 r.3.21(4)(a) had removed the technical barriers to joinder in appropriate cases: where evidence on one count would be properly admissible on the other as evidence of bad character it was hard to argue that the offender would be prejudiced in his defence by having both counts on the same indictment. In the instant case, the recent counts would have been admissible as bad character evidence at the offender’s trial on the historic counts and vice versa.

Not guilty verdicts returned by a jury in respect of two of five counts of historic indecent assault did not demonstrate that the judge’s refusal to stay the prosecution on the ground of abuse of process due to delay and the consequent loss of evidence was mistaken, or that the verdicts were illogical or in any other way unsafe.

An offender’s convictions for historic offences of rape, buggery, attempted rape, indecent assault and murder were deemed safe, as the judge had given the jury adequate directions as to the dangers of delay and its effect on the evidence.

The court declined to re-open a Court of Appeal decision that a judge had erred in granting, pre-trial, a stay of criminal proceedings relating to historic sexual abuse charges. The defendant had not appealed against the decision but sought to challenge it on the basis that it had been overtaken by subsequent authority. The court had difficulty in accepting that such a challenge could properly be brought, and did not wish to encourage similar challenges in comparable situations.

Although the delay in the appellant’s prosecution for historic sexual offences was extreme, the resulting missing evidence was not of a degree of cogency that could amount to a finding of serious prejudice in its absence. The trial judge had given the jury appropriate directions regarding the effect of the delay and the appellant’s convictions were safe.

Where a defendant facing charges of sexual offences against young boys had denied being homosexual, but the prosecution had adduced evidence tending to show his homosexual disposition, there was a real risk that the jury might have drawn an inference that that evidence alone tended to show that he also had a propensity to abuse young boys. It was at least arguable that the judge should have warned the jury in strong terms not to draw such an inference.

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.

Convictions for rape and indecent assault were quashed where the Crown’s reliance on hearsay evidence of bad character in the form of statements containing allegations of rape had circumvented the restrictions on hearsay evidence in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.