The Court of Appeal dismissed S.K.’s appeal against his convictions for sexual offences against his younger sister, rejecting all seven grounds raised by the defence. The judgment addressed conviction only; it did not decide the separate appeal against sentence.
S.K. was convicted after a five-day Central Criminal Court trial in January 2016 of 49 counts of sexual assault, rape and rape under section 4 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990. The offences were alleged to have occurred between 1999 and 2005, when the complainant was aged between 10 and 16. One count was withdrawn from the jury after the prosecution entered a nolle prosequi.
The Court of Appeal rejected challenges to evidence given by the complainant’s parents about a 2012 confrontation with S.K. It held that the trial judge was entitled to refuse an application to discharge the jury after a prosecution question about “experimenting”; even if the question had been leading, that alone did not make the resulting evidence inadmissible. It also upheld the admission of the father’s reference to threats, noting that the complainant had already testified about threats.
The court found there was evidence from which a jury could conclude that the complainant had not consented. It pointed to her age when the abuse began, her limited understanding of what was happening, evidence of fear and threats, and her testimony that she had not acted voluntarily. The judges said a witness need not use a formulaic statement that she did not consent for the issue to be left to a jury.
The court also upheld the trial judge’s ruling that section 14 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935 applied to section 4 offences involving complainants under 15. It rejected arguments that delay and uncertainty about dates made a fair trial impossible, finding no meaningful specific prejudice had been identified and that credibility issues were for the jury. The court found no basis to interfere with the trial judge’s discretion not to give a corroboration warning, and no fault in the delay warning to the jury.
S.K. had been sentenced in 2016 to 11 years’ imprisonment for the rape and section 4 rape offences and three and a half years for sexual assault, to run concurrently. The Court of Appeal’s judgment records those sentences but makes no ruling on the sentence appeal.