Evidence of making indecent images admissible
Each defendant was convicted of offences of sexual abuse of children, in each case said to have been committed over a substantial period. Each of them denied any sexual contact with the children at all. In each case the judge admitted, under the bad character rules contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, evidence that the defendant had viewed and/or made indecent photographs of children. The defendants contended that the judge was wrong to admit that evidence.
Held: The appeals failed: ‘we are satisfied that this evidence was admissible and properly admitted under gateway D. It is true that the making of the images found appears to have been in 2008 or thereabouts and that that was some years after the two complainants had ceased to live with the defendant and thus when any offences could have been committed. But a sexual interest in young children is a characteristic which is unlikely to change over years. The jury was entitled to find that this evidence tended to show that the complaints were not false but rather were made against a man who would indeed have had the sexual interest in these two children which they said he had.’
Hughes VP CACD LJ, Roderick Evans, Gloster DBE JJ
[2011] EWCA Crim 1474, [2012] 1 Cr App R 8, [2013] 1 WLR 676, (2012) 176 JP 11, [2011] 4 All ER 568
Bailii
England and Wales
Criminal Evidence
Leading Case
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.562781
