The Court of Appeal has allowed an applicant to appeal late against his rape conviction on five specified grounds and against his sentence on two grounds. It rejected proposed grounds concerning his hearing difficulties, finding that he had not put sufficient evidence before the court to show they were arguable.
The judgment, delivered on 14 January 2021, concerns an application to extend the time to appeal a conviction reached by a unanimous jury on 27 January 2020. The applicant was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on 21 February 2020, backdated to the date of conviction. He signed his extension application on 9 June and filed a notice of appeal on 30 June. The court treated the delay as almost three months, without deciding a dispute over its precise length.
The applicant cited hearing problems, difficulty communicating by telephone during pandemic restrictions, and a change of legal advisers as reasons for the delay. The court accepted that reduced prison visits and restrictions affecting people over 70 during the early pandemic were relevant circumstances. It also said changing solicitors could not itself justify missing the deadline, and noted a further two-week delay by the applicant’s solicitors in seeking an extension after receiving instructions.
The court said the interests of justice required consideration of the complainant’s interest in finality. The complainant was also involved in other proceedings in which the applicant’s brothers were accused of rape and sexual abuse. The court considered the relatively short delay, the pandemic circumstances and whether proposed appeal grounds were arguable.
One conviction ground concerned a letter from a juror, described in the judgment as the foreman, raising concerns about jury conduct after the verdict. The court said that ground was arguable, while making no finding on whether it would ultimately succeed. It also allowed four other specified conviction grounds, but the judgment does not set out their details in its final order.
The court refused to allow an appeal ground about a juror allegedly overhearing discussions, saying there was insufficient information to establish that it was arguable or had been raised at trial. It also rejected grounds based on the applicant’s hearing, noting that the audiologist’s report had not been provided and that there was no affidavit evidence detailing specific difficulties at trial. The court did not decide whether the hearing problems added to the explanation for delay.
The extension permits an appeal only on conviction grounds (i) to (v) and sentence grounds (i) and (ii), as identified in the application. The court also granted legal aid for the extension application and appeal. It did not decide the merits of the permitted appeal grounds.