The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against conviction by a man identified in the judgment as DMcD, who was convicted of two counts of rape in the Central Criminal Court in 2017. The appeal concerned the convictions only; the court said the sentence appeal was not before it in this judgment.
The complainant, who was 14 at the time of the alleged offences, was the appellant’s niece. She said the two incidents occurred between February 2012 and April 2013, after she moved into her cousin D’s home. The appellant, D’s father, later moved into the same house.
At trial, the complainant described one incident after she and the appellant had watched television, and another several months later in the bedroom she shared with D. The defence denied the allegations and argued that, even if rape had occurred, the appellant was not the assailant. The judgment records that the complainant did not say she saw the assailant’s face during the second incident.
The appeal challenged the trial judge’s refusal to withdraw the case from the jury, the identification direction, the handling of alleged inconsistencies and the corroboration warning, the direction on reasonable doubt, and restrictions on cross-examination about the complainant’s sexual history. The appellant also argued that delay and missing evidence made a fair trial impossible.
The Court of Appeal rejected those grounds. It held that the trial evidence was sufficient for a properly directed jury to consider identification and that the judge’s recognition warning was adequate. It also found no basis to withdraw the case under the Galbraith principles, and rejected the argument that delay and the absence of possible forensic evidence required the trial to stop.
The court considered the corroboration warning adequate in context. The trial judge had told the jury there was no corroboration outside the complainant’s evidence and that they should take the warning into account. The appeal court also found the reasonable-doubt directions appropriate when read as a whole, including the judge’s final instruction that any reasonable doubt required acquittal.
The trial judge had allowed limited cross-examination about when and with whom the complainant said she first had sex, and about her relationship with C. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision not to permit broader questioning about prior sexual history, finding the ruling careful and proper. It dismissed the appeal against conviction.