The Court of Appeal has dismissed J. McG’s appeal against his convictions for sexual offences involving four complainants. The appeal concerned the safety of the convictions; the court did not reconsider the sentence in this judgment.
McG was convicted in March 2019 of 11 counts of indecent assault and seven counts of sexual assault. In May 2019, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, with the final 12 months suspended. The offences were said to have occurred between 1984 and 1993.
The appeal challenged the decision to try the charges together, the handling of delay and missing witnesses, directions to the jury about sample counts and cross-corroboration, an amendment to count 25, and the refusal to discharge the jury after some counts were withdrawn from its consideration.
The court held that the trial judge had not erred in refusing to separate the charges. It found sufficient common features among the allegations, including the employment relationship between McG and the complainants and the role of alcohol. The court said these features made the complainants’ evidence cross-admissible and concluded the trial judge had properly exercised her discretion.
On delay, the appeal court said the trial judge had considered the possible evidence of missing witnesses, the evidence available from other witnesses and whether the absence of the witnesses created a risk of an unfair trial. It upheld the decision that the jury’s directions could address the delay.
The court also rejected the challenges to the jury charge. The judge corrected her reference to sample counts by telling jurors to treat all counts as specific charges. The appeal court found no resulting unfairness and said the jury had been carefully warned about collusion and contamination when considering evidence from multiple complainants.
Count 25 was amended during trial to end on 14 November 1991, reflecting evidence that the complainant was 13 or 14 at the time. The appeal court found the amendment did not cause injustice: the jury still had the evidence about possible dates for the football match relevant to the allegation.
Finally, the court upheld the refusal to discharge the jury after directed acquittals on some counts. The trial judge told jurors McG was innocent of those charges and that they could not use them to support the remaining counts. The appeal was dismissed.