The Court of Appeal has dismissed all grounds of D. McG’s appeal against his convictions for sexual offences involving two anonymised complainants, identified as M and L. The judgment, delivered on 23 March 2017, concerned conviction only; the appellant’s appeal against sentence was outside its scope.
The appellant had been tried by a jury in the Central Criminal Court on 38 counts relating to alleged offences against his stepchildren between 2001 and 2010. On 21 April 2016, the jury found him guilty of all but three counts. The judgment records that the convictions included ten counts relating to M, returned by majority verdict. On 20 June 2016, he received concurrent prison terms, with the longest term being 12 years, and 12 months’ post-release supervision.
The appeal challenged the refusal to separate the counts concerning M and L. The appellant argued that the accounts differed and that trying them together risked unfair prejudice. The Court of Appeal said there were significant similarities: both complainants were children and the appellant’s stepchildren; the alleged abuse took place largely in family homes; and both said money had been offered. It also noted differences, including the complainants’ genders and ages, and allegations of pornography or photography relating to only one complainant.
The court held that the trial judge had properly exercised her discretion to refuse severance. It rejected the collusion concern and noted that the jury had been expressly told that one complainant’s evidence did not corroborate the other’s. The appeal court also dismissed the challenge to the trial judge’s refusal to discharge the jury after M briefly referred to “accusations” against the appellant, relating to a person not involved in the trial. The court found the reference brief, lacking detail, and unlikely to have significantly affected the jury.
The appellant also argued that inconsistencies in L’s evidence made the verdicts unsafe and that the jury’s mixed verdicts concerning M were perverse. The court said credibility and reliability were matters for the jury and that it was open to jurors to reach different verdicts on different counts. It dismissed all grounds of appeal.