The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against conviction and sentence by a man identified as TF, upholding the trial judge’s decision to admit evidence about a complainant’s disclosure to his wife in 2010.
The court’s judgment, delivered electronically on 19 April 2021 by President Birmingham, concerned convictions entered on 26 October 2018 after a retrial. The indictment contained five counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The offences were alleged to have occurred between 1989 and 1996 and involved two complainants, identified as X and Y, who were children at the time.
The appeal challenged the admission of evidence from X’s wife, Z, about what he told her in 2010. The trial judge had ruled that this was X’s first reasonable opportunity to complain. The Court of Appeal said the parties agreed that complaint evidence had to meet four conditions, including that the complaint was made at the first reasonable opportunity. The dispute was whether the 2010 disclosure met that requirement.
At the trial, X said he had tried to put the abuse behind him and described mental health difficulties. He also said he had learned in the early 2000s that Y had made a complaint, but did not then disclose his own allegations. He told the court he had been concerned about the effect a disclosure might have on his mother, after seeing Y’s mother become suicidal following Y’s disclosure.
The Court of Appeal found that the trial judge had carefully considered the circumstances and was entitled to conclude that the 2010 disclosure was made at the first reasonable opportunity, despite the years that had passed since the alleged offences. It therefore rejected the first ground of appeal.
The court also dismissed a second ground concerning evidence that X had experienced mental health difficulties. It said a witness may describe their own health, while not offering a formal, detailed diagnosis. The court noted that this ground had not been pressed with vigour.
The man also appealed a sentence of six years and six months’ imprisonment on one count, with lesser concurrent terms on the remaining counts. The Court of Appeal said the trial judge had recognised the mitigating factors, including the appellant’s age, lack of previous convictions and work record. It was not persuaded that the sentence fell outside the available range or that the trial judge had made an error of principle. The court dismissed the appeal in full.