The Court of Appeal has set aside a man’s conviction for rape and child defilement after finding that the trial judge should have allowed greater questioning about why the complainant was taking contraceptive medication.
The court allowed the appeal on that ground, which it described as the primary ground of appeal. It said the issue could have affected the complainant’s credibility and should have been left to the jury after clarification through cross-examination. The court did not order a retrial; it said any application by the Director of Public Prosecutions for a retrial would be considered in due course.
The appellant had been convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court in June 2016 of rape and defilement of a child under 17. He received an eight-year prison sentence for the rape count, with the second count taken into consideration. The appeal judgment addressed the conviction appeal; the source says the appellant had also appealed his sentence.
The offences were alleged to have occurred at the appellant’s home between 4 and 5 October 2014, when he was 21 and the complainant was 15. The defence case at trial was that sexual activity was consensual and that there had been no penetrative sex. The judgment records medical evidence of bleeding, a recently torn hymen, and blood and the appellant’s semen on the complainant’s underwear. The prosecution case was that the complainant had not previously been sexually active.
The defence sought to question the complainant about explicit electronic messages and her reasons for taking the pill, arguing that the evidence could support the possibility that she had been sexually active before the alleged offences. The trial judge refused permission to question her about the messages and concluded that the medication was prescribed for medical reasons, with no evidential basis for the suggested sexual purpose. The defence was allowed to suggest that she had previously had intercourse and to refer to the pill as a possible explanation for blood on her underwear.
The appeal court upheld the trial judge’s rulings concerning the complainant’s sexual history and phone messages, and the proposed theory that she had made the complaint to regain her father’s affection. It found fault with the restriction on questions about why she took or continued taking the pill despite adverse reactions. The court said the other grounds generally appeared to lack merit but did not determine them, having allowed the appeal on the pill-related ground.