Regina v H (Evidence: Corroboration); Regina v Hepburn: CACD 2 Mar 1994

The defendant appealed his conviction for indecent assault on his daughter and stepdaughter. The prosecution relied upon the allegatins as similar fact evidence. The complainants denied collaboration and concoction.
Held: The jury should decide first if the complainants have colluded before being asked to assess whether their accounts were corroboration for each other. Nevertheless the appeal failed. The assessment of the reliability of the witnesses, was essentially one for the jury not the judge, and he had been correct to leave the question to the jury.

Citations:

Gazette 30-Mar-1994, Times 02-Mar-1994, Independent 25-Feb-1994, [1994] 1 WLR 809

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

FollowedRegina v Johanssen CACD 1978
. .
Not FollowedRegina v Ananthanarayanan CACD 11-Mar-1993
The defendant appealed against his conviction for indecent assault. He complained that the judge had in effect left to the jury the question of whether the evidence of the two accusers was contaminated.
Held: His appeal succeeded. It was for . .
FollowedDirector of Public Prosecutions v Hester CACD 1972
. .

Cited by:

Appeal fromRegina v H (Evidence: Corroboration) HL 25-May-1995
The fact that there may have been a possibility of collusion is not sufficient to stop the admission of similar fact evidence by way of corroboration. ‘ . . the function of the trial judge is not to decide as an intellectual process whether the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Criminal Evidence

Updated: 08 October 2022; Ref: scu.86784