Aadam Mohammed v. Her Majesty’s Advocate [2020] HCJAC 27

Note of appeal against conviction:- The appellant was convicted after trial at the High Court of a charge of indecent assault which occurred on an occasion between 1 October 2009 and 31 October 2010 (charge 2) and rape on an occasion between 1 and 31 December 2009 (charge 3). A further allegation of rape (charge 1) was found not proven. The appellant appealed against his conviction on a number of grounds:- (1) that the trial judge erred in directing the jury that mutual corroboration could be applied between the indecent assault and the 2 charges of rape, in that these charges were insufficiently linked in character and circumstances for the doctrine to apply; (2) in any event, the circumstances of charges 2 and 3 were too materially different to apply the doctrine, and in the event of acquitting on charge 1, the jury should have been told to acquit also on the remaining charges; and (3) the circumstances of the two charges were so different, the verdict was one which no reasonable jury could have returned. It was submitted on behalf of the appellant that there was a sufficiency of evidence in relation to charges 1 and 3 when applying the doctrine of mutual corroboration, however, the circumstances of charge 2 were so far removed from the other two charges that charge 2 ought to have been removed from the jury’s consideration notwithstanding the absence of a submission to that effect at the trial. It was further submitted that the jury should have been directed that if they acquitted on charge 1 they could not convict of charges 2 or 3 either. It was submitted that there had to be an overall similarity in the conduct identifying each charge as a component part in one course of criminal conduct persistently pursued by the accused and that was missing in the present case. On behalf of the Crown it was submitted that there was a sufficiency of evidence in relation to all three charges. Here the court allowed the appeal and quashed the conviction in relation to charges 2 and 3. The court considered that once the jury had acquitted the appellant of charge 1 it was not open for them to hold that charges 2 and 3 could be used to corroborate each other. The court considered that once the appellant was acquitted of charge 1 the jury were left with two charges where the nature of the allegations, the circumstances of their commission and the locus were all quite different and did not permit the application of the doctrine of mutual corroboration.