The Court of Appeal has dismissed A.A.’s appeal against convictions for sexual offences involving three children in his extended family, rejecting each of the four grounds argued before it.
A.A. was convicted on 6 August 2021 of four counts of sexual assault, three counts of sexual exploitation of a child, two counts of rape and one count of rape under a separate provision. The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered on 16 May 2024, says the offences occurred between 18 August 2014 and 28 April 2016, when the children were aged between five and nine. The court used initials that were not the real initials of the appellant or children to protect the children’s identities.
The appeal challenged the trial judge’s refusal to investigate a jury foreman’s post-conviction letter, the refusal to order separate trials, the admission of children’s interview recordings in which they used notes, and the admission of portions of another accused’s interview memoranda that referred to A.A.
On the jury issue, the Court of Appeal said jury deliberations are generally protected from scrutiny and found no exceptional circumstance requiring an inquiry. It noted that deliberations lasted 19 hours and 54 minutes, that no juror raised a concern during the trial, and that the jury returned verdicts including majority verdicts. It also found no error in the trial judge’s refusal to arrest the verdicts.
The court upheld the decision to try A.A. with other accused. It said the allegations were closely connected to the family context and that the trial judge had directed jurors to consider each accused and each count separately. The court found those directions adequately addressed the risk of prejudice from references to A.A. in another accused’s interviews. It also upheld the trial judge’s decision to leave the disputed interview material before the jury, subject to warnings that one accused’s account was not evidence against another.
The appeal court further ruled that the children could use their notes to organise their accounts during recorded interviews under section 16 of the Criminal Evidence Act 1992. It found no breach of the rule against self-corroboration and no unfairness in admitting the recordings.
Finally, the court rejected A.A.’s argument that the jury should have been told he had no obligation to call witnesses. It said the trial judge had explained that an accused need not give evidence and could participate in the trial as they wished.
The appeal was against conviction. The Court of Appeal dismissed it and did not disturb the convictions.