The Court of Appeal has dismissed P.M.’s appeal against conviction, rejecting challenges to the joint trial of counts involving three complainants and to evidence given by a witness who was not charged in the case.
P.M. was convicted on 27 May 2022 of 14 counts of sexual assault and eight counts of rape. The jury disagreed on count 3. The appeal was heard on the grounds that the trial judge should have separated the counts for different complainants and should have excluded evidence from NM. The judgment does not set out any change to the convictions beyond dismissing the appeal.
The allegations concerned P.M.’s two nieces, LH and CH, and nephew, DH. The judgment says the alleged offences occurred at four locations when the complainants were young children. P.M. was aged between 12 and 18 during the periods covered by the allegations. The trial judge refused an application to try the counts concerning DH separately from those concerning LH and CH.
The Court of Appeal said the allegations shared features, including the use of games as a precursor to abuse, and that DH was independent of his cousins. It also noted that count 7 concerned an incident involving both DH and CH, creating a direct evidential link. Although the evidence was prejudicial to P.M., the court held its probative value was not outweighed by that prejudice and found the joint trial had not been unfair. It said the different gravity of the allegations, on its own, did not require separate trials.
NM testified about alleged conduct by P.M. when she was about nine or ten. P.M. was not charged with that conduct. The trial judge admitted the evidence because CH had said P.M. referred to NM during an alleged assault, and the evidence was relevant to CH’s credibility and to what P.M. allegedly said. The appeal court accepted that the evidence was prejudicial but found it highly probative and upheld its admission. It also rejected the argument that the jury directions allowed NM’s evidence to be used to address the presumption of incapacity applicable to some counts.
Both grounds argued on appeal failed. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against conviction.