The appellant dentist appealed his conviction on two out of three charges of sexual assault on teenage patients, saying that the judge should not have allowed the evidence of each complainant to support that of the others.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘we are quite satisfied that this jury cannot have failed to realise that in finding that the counts relating to the second complainant were unproved it was saying that there were independent and similar complaints against this man which were not or may well not be true. It was, we are quite satisfied, not necessary for the judge to attempt what seems to us to be an extremely difficult exercise of foreseeing at the time of summing -up all possible scenarios of conclusion to which the jury could come and directing it hypothetically and separately in relation to each. This summing -up, we are quite satisfied, not only put the defence case fairly; it also put squarely and fairly the use to which the mutual support of each complaint to which it could properly be put. In those circumstances, although these cases are always, both at trial and in this court, anxious ones, we are satisfied that it was for the jury to gauge the evidence overall and to determine whether or not it was sure that the defendant was guilty.’
Citations:
[2006] EWCA Crim 2133, [2007] 1 Cr App Rep 16
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Criminal Evidence
Updated: 26 July 2022; Ref: scu.278941