The Court of Appeal has dismissed M.D’s appeal against seven convictions for sexual offences involving a complainant identified as C. The convictions remain in place. The court rejected arguments that the trial judge should have withdrawn counts from the jury and that her jury charge made the trial unfair.
M.D was convicted in September 2020 on six counts of sexual assault and one count of meeting a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The assaults were alleged to have occurred between April 2012 and November 2014. The meeting offence was alleged to have occurred in November 2014. The judgment says the alleged assaults took place at C’s family home, apart from one at a cinema. It describes C as M.D’s “step-granddaughter”, explaining that M.D’s son had been in a relationship with C’s mother.
On appeal, M.D argued that the evidence was too uncertain about when two of the assaults occurred to leave those counts to the jury. The court held there was sufficient evidence, considered as a whole, to allow the jury to decide whether the events fell within the charged periods.
M.D also challenged the decision to leave the meeting offence to the jury. The court said travel for the purpose of sexual exploitation could occur alongside another purpose, such as visiting family. It found sufficient evidence for the jury to consider whether sexual exploitation was one purpose of M.D’s travel. The appellate court stressed that the underlying factual question was for the jury, not the trial judge, to decide.
The appeal also challenged the trial judge’s comments about the effects of delay on a witness’s memory and the defence’s ability to cross-examine. The Court of Appeal noted that defence counsel had told the trial judge a delay warning was not being sought, and no objection was made to the charge. It found the comments, as given, were beneficial to M.D and did not require further elaboration. The court rejected the argument that this created a fundamental injustice allowing the appeal point to be raised despite the lack of an objection at trial.
The court rejected all grounds of appeal and dismissed the appeal against conviction. It did not quash any conviction.