The Court of Appeal has dismissed Samir Mansour’s appeal against his conviction for rape, rejecting his argument that the jury should have been discharged after the complainant referred to a threat during her evidence.
A jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted Mansour on 10 July 2014. The alleged offence occurred on 8 January 2010. The appeal concerned one issue: whether the trial judge erred by refusing to discharge the jury after the complainant said the accused had threatened to poke her eye out if she moved.
The evidence was given on the second day of the trial. Before the trial, prosecution and defence counsel had discussed the effect of earlier acquittals. Prosecution counsel told the trial judge that he had spoken to the complainant, with defence counsel’s permission, and advised her not to refer to the threat to kill or to the earlier section 4 rape count.
The appeal court described the earlier proceedings as lengthy and convoluted. Mansour had previously faced four counts of rape under section 4, along with sexual assault, assault causing harm and false imprisonment charges. After an earlier conviction was quashed on appeal, a later jury was discharged. At the third trial, he was acquitted of sexual assault and the section 5 offence, while the jury could not agree on the rape and false imprisonment counts. The fourth trial proceeded on a single rape count.
The defence argued that the complainant’s reference was unacceptable because it touched on matters connected with prior acquittals, including a threat to cause serious harm. The Court of Appeal considered whether the evidence created prejudice or unfairness or made the trial unsatisfactory. It concluded that it did not.
The court said the jury’s question was whether the sexual activity was consensual, and whether the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was not. It considered the threat to be part of the incident described by the complainant, rather than an unrelated prejudicial matter. The court held that the trial judge was entitled to refuse the application to discharge the jury.
The Court of Appeal rejected this ground of appeal and dismissed the appeal. The judgment did not reconsider the jury’s verdict; it addressed the challenge to the trial judge’s decision about the complainant’s evidence.