R v Nazir Ahmed

In April 2023 the appellant, NazirAhmed, was tried in the Crown Court at Cardiff on an indictment containing four counts of indecent assault of one complainant contrary to s 14(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (counts 1 to 4) and three counts of rape of a second complainant contrary to s 1 of the 1956 Act (counts 5, 6 and 7). On 21 April 2023, he was acquitted of each of the alleged indecent assaults but convicted by a majority on each of the three counts of rape.

He appealed against those convictions with the leave of the single judge on the grounds that they are unsafe because cross-examination of the second complainant (C) was wrongly curtailed, and the jury were wrongly deprived of the opportunity to consider other relevant evidence. On 30 October 2024, we heard his appeal and allowed it for reasons to be given later. These are our reasons.

The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this case. That means that during the lifetime of the complainant nothing must be included in any publication that would be likely to identify her as being the complainant. It is for that reason that we have anonymised her as C and will also use ciphers for some others who feature in the facts and leave out some dates and inessential details that might lead to C’s identification.

C was born in 1983. In her teens she worked in a convenience store in Grand Avenue, Cardiff, which was owned and run by the appellant. In March 2020, C contacted the police and alleged that the appellant had raped her. In June 2020, she gave a video recorded interview which formed the basis of the prosecution case at trial.

C said that she had worked in the shop from just before her 14th birthday, for a year, that is to say in 1997 to 1998. She described her life at that time as manic. She hated being at home, rarely went to school, and was drinking a lot. She said that she worked mostly at the weekends. She began by stacking shelves but moved on to going with the appellant to a warehouse to collect stock. On the second warehouse visit, after her 14th birthday, the appellant had vaginally raped her in the back of the van. After that they made regular, almost weekly visits to the warehouse. On each occasion he would pull the van over, tell her to get in the back and rape her. She said this happened regularly until just before her 15th birthday. She spoke of an occasion when he took her in the van to a set of garages near her home and raped her there, as she banged the van walls. She said it happened one more time but after that she “never went back.” About a week later she had tried to take her own life.

C’s allegations were reflected in an indictment containing three single-incident counts of rape, each on different unspecified dates between C’s 13th and 15th birthdays. The prosecution relied on an edited version of the recorded interview. Medical records showed that C had indeed taken a drug overdose and was taken to University Hospital of Wales in 1998. This was on the day after her 15th birthday. That became an agreed fact. The prosecution case, as opened to the jury, was that C had carried out this suicide attempt “effectively to put a stop to what the defendant was doing to her ...” and she had then decided never to go back to the shop.

The defence case was that although C had worked at the shop at some time it was only for a short while and her account was otherwise untrue. She had fabricated it. The appellant’s own account, in support of which he later gave evidence, was that C had worked for him for only two or three weeks. He made no case as to when this was, but he said that when she started she had told him she was 17. She had worked stacking shelves and never went to the warehouse. She had never been in his van and he had never had sex with her. C had stopped working at the shop after her mother had come to the shop and had an argument. C’s evidence was tested and challenged accordingly in cross-examination. She agreed that her mother had gone to the shop and attacked the applicant, after which the mother was banned from the shop.

In the course of cross-examination the defence made the two applications to the trial judge with which this appeal is primarily concerned.

The first application was for leave to cross-examine C about an allegation she had made to social services that she had been sexually assaulted by another man, her mother’s boyfriend, whom we shall call B. The application was made and dealt with on the footing that the proposed questioning fell within the scope of s 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (section 41) (which prohibits the defence from asking questions or adducing evidence about a complainant’s “sexual behaviour” without the leave of the court and restricts the circumstances in which leave may be given).

The appellant’s trial advocate made the application orally without written notice. He relied on social services records dated 15 February 1999 which noted that C had previously made such an allegation. Counsel pointed to a passage in C’s interview in which she had said that at the time of the alleged rapes she used to drink “to blot out other memories”. The advocate wanted to name B and to ask C if the bad memories included him, and whether those could explain her suicide attempt.

The judge refused the application without giving a formal ruling. The substance of the short reasons he gave was that the evidence about timing in respect of the other complaint was too vague to justify naming B or asking a specific question of the kind proposed. The judge determined that C could be asked a general question about whether the reason she had taken an overdose was because of other bad memories that had caused her to drink. Such a question was asked and she denied this.

The second defence application, heard the following day, was a written application for leave to adduce evidence of C’s bad character pursuant to section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (section 100). The application was in two parts. The first related to evidence that in 2000 and 2001, as a result of convictions, C had been in contact with the Youth Offending Panel and the National Probation Service. The aim was to cast doubt on the veracity of C’s complaint about the appellant by pointing to a failure to make it to those authorities at that time. The defence did not seek leave to refer to the offences themselves.

That limb of the application was conceded by the prosecution and granted by the judge. Indeed the prosecution and judge went further, concluding that a 2001 conviction for four counts of securing the remission of a liability by deception could be put before the jury as relevant to C’s credibility. Those convictions duly went before the jury as agreed facts, and C was cross-examined about her failure to complain about the appellant in 2001. She agreed she had been obliged to have contact with the probation service when she was a teenager. She could not recall if this had happened in 2001, but she said she had had 26 years in which to make a complaint about the appellant and it made no difference when she made it.

The second limb of the bad character application sought to adduce evidence relating to an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm committed by C against a neighbour, whom we shall call N, on 11 October 2019. For this purpose reliance was placed on a summary contained in a police form MG5. The facts relied on before the judge were that C had committed such an assault and eventually pleaded guilty to doing so. But on the day it happened she had complained to the police of being the victim not a perpetrator. She had said that she and her husband had been assaulted by N. When arrested and interviewed the following day she had admitted biting N and gouging his eyes but had said she did so in defence of her husband who was being assaulted by N. She was charged in June 2020, changed her plea to guilty in May 2021 and in June 2021 received a suspended sentence of imprisonment.

C’s complaint about the appellant had thus been made and her interview about that matter had been given at a time when she herself was facing criminal proceedings. Counsel wanted to explore whether there was a connection between the two sets of proceedings, submitting that C’s complaint may have been made with a view to improving her position in respect of the assault charge. The written application was also advanced on a second basis, namely that the defence wished to seek to undermine C’s credibility by suggesting that her allegations against N were false. In the course of oral submissions, however, that line of argument was dropped. Counsel told the judge that he did not wish to take that point further “for the simple reason that she was charged … and convicted on her own plea.”

The judge gave an extempore ruling refusing this limb of the application on the grounds that the defence theory as presented to him was “highly tenuous and of no great interest to the jury and no doubt highly prejudicial and ... of no relevance whatsoever.”

In re-examination, C told the jury that the incident at the shop which led to her mother being banned had taken place whilst C was working there and “while it was going on”. She said that the reason she had reported the appellant’s behaviour in 2020 was that she would have felt hypocritical had she not done so, given that she had recently “preached” to her son that he should go to court to speak out about something that had happened.

The appellant gave evidence in his own defence on the lines we have indicated. He also told the jury that whenever he went to the warehouse it was with his daughter Noreen or another worker, Sid. The defence called evidence from Noreen and from the appellant’s son, Razwan. Noreen told the jury that C had worked in the shop twice over a two-week period. Razwan said C had worked a couple of Saturdays stacking shelves. Evidence was also adduced from Sidney Williams and Glenys McGlinn. Mr Williams gave evidence that he had regularly gone to the warehouse with the appellant. Ms McGlinn said she had worked in the shop at the relevant time and recalled C working there once. She never saw a girl in the appellant’s van.

The issue for the jury was whether they were sure that C’s allegations were true.

Two grounds of appeal settled by the appellant’s trial advocate, Mr Nayager, argued that each of the rulings we have mentioned was wrong, that each deprived the jury of information which ought properly to have been considered, and that the cumulative effect was to undermine the safety of the appellant’s conviction.

The single judge (Yip J, DBE) said she was “not impressed by the grounds of appeal as drafted” but having considered the trial transcript she had some concerns about the way the applications were made and dealt with at the trial including the “dynamics” of the relationship between the judge and counsel for the appellant. She considered the issues may not have received sufficient attention at the trial and that the case merited review by the full court.

In connection with the complaint about B the single judge commented that it seemed no attention had been paid to the decision of this court in R v BT and MH. The reference was to the following passage ([2001] EWCA Crim 1877, [2002] 1 Cr App R 22 [33]):

“normally ... questions or evidence about a failure to complain about the alleged assault which is the subject matter of the charge, while complaining about other assaults, are not ones ‘about’ any sexual behaviour of the complainant. They relate not to her sexual behaviour but to her statements in the past or to her failure to complain.”

In other words, such questions or evidence are not subject to the restrictions imposed by section 41.

The single judge directed the Registrar to instruct fresh Counsel for the purposes of the appeal. That led to the instruction of Mr Wainwright. He submitted revised perfected grounds, with an application for leave to amend the grounds so far as necessary and an application for leave to adduce fresh evidence. Mr Wainwright argued the appeal at the hearing before us.

Mr Wainwright developed and expanded the first ground of appeal on the basis of further information which he had extracted from three sources: police records and social services records which the prosecution disclosed as unused material, but which were not all deployed by trial Counsel, and a section of C’s recorded interview which was edited out of the version played to the jury. All of this material was included within the application to adduce fresh evidence that we have mentioned.

The police records indicate that C’s complaint against B was that he had raped her in about 1995, when she would have been 12 or 13 years old. The complaint was made to the mother some three months after C’s suicide attempt. The mother promptly called 999 and reported it to the police. They spoke to C the following day when she said that she wanted to make a complaint about the matter. Arrangements were made for her to be interviewed but a few days later, in the presence of her mother, she told the police she no longer wanted to make a complaint. No further action was taken. Another earlier passage in the police records, dated a few days after the suicide attempt, makes reference to C “arguing with her mother over boyfriend”, threatening to leave home, and asking to see social services.

The passages from C’s interview that are now relied on contain statements that C’s mother had told the appellant that if she found out he was touching C she would kill him; and that the mother had later asked C if anything had happened between them, to which C had said no. She didn’t know why she had said that but it was “partly because she didn’t believe me when I told her it happened before”. There was a further passage edited out by agreement in which C said that she didn’t feel she could tell her mother “because of a previous incident where my mother didn’t believe me.”

The social services records from February 1999 contain references in the present tense to C taking money from a shopkeeper on Grand Avenue and to C’s mother threatening “the man who gives C money”.

Mr Wainwright submitted that all this evidence and cross-examination about it should have been before the jury for consideration. He identified three ways in which this material was relevant to the issues.

It was accepted that the first of these lines of argument engages the provisions of section 41. Rightly so, in our view. The appellant has made no suggestion that C’s allegation against B was false. The thrust of his case is that C may have been mistaken about the true cause of her suicide attempt. As Mr Wainwright put it, she transposed the reason for that attempt from sexual abuse committed by B to alleged sexual abuse by the appellant. Reliance on the complaint about B for this purpose would involve questions or evidence “about the sexual behaviour of the complainant” within the meaning of section 41: see R vBJK [2024] EWCA Crim 667 [33]-[34]. The statutory restrictions would apply. Mr Wainwright submits, however, that on a proper analysis such questions would be permissible under section 41(3) or (5) and that the court’s discretion to grant leave would or should be exercised.

As for the other two proposed lines of argument, Mr Wainwright submits that the second would not involve any questions or evidence about C’s sexual behaviour; and although the third would inescapably involve reliance on the complaint about B the passage we have cited from BT & MH (above) is authority that this would not engage the provisions of section 41.

This ground was also modified by Mr Wainwright. He did not pursue the contention that C’s report to police that the appellant had raped her might have been motivated by a wish to better her position in the assault proceedings. He accepted the single judge’s assessment that this was “tenuous”. We agree.

Mr Wainwright did however seek to revive the second aspect of the original argument, which the trial advocate had abandoned. Mr Wainwright argued that the form MG5 shows that in October 2019 C repeatedly made false allegations to the police, in detail. This is evidence of dishonesty that would have had substantial probative value in relation to the issue of C’s credibility which was central to the case. The evidence thus meets the requirements of section 100. Mr Wainwright highlighted that this false account had been given shortly before C made her complaints about the appellant and was being maintained at the time she did so. He also pointed to the account of the assault given by N and his wife, submitting that this revealed “bizarre” behaviour on C’s part. The account included C coming to their door shortly before 9am on a weekday, banging on the door and shouting about how “they have been doing Satanic rituals”. C and her partner had then forced their way in and violently assaulted N, including repeated blows with a brick to his head.

Mr Wainwright sought to bolster this argument by relying on two aspects of the prosecution case. First, C’s evidence in re-examination that she had gone to the police about the appellant from conscientious motives, being keen to tell the truth. Secondly, a passage in the prosecution’s closing submissions which suggested to the jury that C might have given them the impression that “in later life she has now rather sorted herself out.” Mr Wainwright submitted that both assertions were misleading in the light of the ABH and its surrounding circumstances. Neither could have been placed before the jury had evidence been adduced of the assault and C’s false statements about it. Alternatively, that evidence would have been admissible to correct the misleading impression given.

Although the grounds as now formulated are concerned with the same two aspects of the trial as the original grounds and cover much of the same territory, they are different in several respects. We think the differences are material so that leave to amend is required. Applying the principles identified in R v James [2018] EWCA Crim 285, [2018]1 WLR 2749 [38], in all the circumstances we think it clear that it is consistent with the overriding objective and in the interests of justice to grant leave to amend, and we do.

As the appeal is founded on material that was not adduced at trial we have to decide whether it is, in the words of s 23(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, “necessary or expedient in the interests of justice” to admit that material on this appeal. In answering that question we are bound to consider the factors specified in s 23(2) of the 1968 Act, though none of these is decisive. The authorities show that the ultimate question for this court, if we do admit the evidence, is whether the conviction is safe. The question is not whether the jury might have reached a different conclusion, though we can consider that issue. See Dial v State of Trinidad & Tobago [2005] 1 WLR 1660 and the discussion in Samuel [2011] EWCA Crim at [54]-[57].

We accept that all of the material is credible. Some of it was plainly admissible at trial, and we are prepared to assume that all of it was. The Crown has not sought to argue the contrary. All the material was available, and it plainly could have been adduced at trial. It is rare for this court to admit evidence in those circumstances. The key questions arising under s 23(2) of the 1968 Act are, accordingly, why the material was not adduced at trial and whether it may afford a reason for allowing the appeal. The latter is of course closely connected with the safety of the conviction.

Because the grounds as revised involved criticism of the way the appellant’s case was conducted at trial the procedure prescribed in McCook [2014] EWCA Crim 734 was operated, and the appellant waived privilege. His trial advocate was been asked to comment on the accuracy of the grounds, and to explain the reasons for not applying to adduce the material identified by Mr Wainwright and whether the appellant was consulted. We have the advantage of a written response from the trial advocate.

This court is slow to allow appeals against conviction based on complaints about the conduct of the appellant’s trial representatives. As a general rule, grounds of this kind will succeed only if the course of action adopted fell outside the bounds of what a reasonably competent lawyer could have done in the light of the information available at the time, and it led to some identifiable error or irregularity that itself undermined the fairness of the trial or the safety of the conviction; second thoughts or second guesses about reasonable tactical decisions will not be enough: R v Day (Mark Darren) [2003] EWCA Crim 1060 [15].

The grounds of appeal in this case identify multiple points that could have been taken at trial, on the basis of material that was available to the trial advocate. We have concluded that each of the points is a cogent one. Some of them were taken but then not pursued. Some were taken but pursued in a way that is justly criticised as narrower and weaker than it should have been. Others were not taken at all. None of this is said to have been guided by tactical considerations or client instructions. Much of it is unexplained. We have no satisfactory explanation for any of it. It may be that none of the criticisms would, by itself, have been weighty enough but their cumulative effect convinced us that the conduct of the defence case at trial was so deficient that these convictions could not stand. In what follows we set out the main reasons for that conclusion.

A few months after the end of the indictment period C told her mother that she had been raped by B at the age of 12. The police were swiftly alerted and took prompt steps to investigate. C was aware of this. This was a clear opportunity for C to make her allegations against the appellant, if those allegations were true. Yet she did not do so. As a matter of law, questioning and evidence to this effect was permissible without the leave of the court. Leave pursuant to section 41 was not required because those provisions would not be engaged by questioning of that kind: see MT & BH. Yet no attempt was made to question C along these lines or to introduce evidence of the complaint about B for this purpose.

The trial advocate has not explained this. We are unable to understand it. He and the judge were both alive to the potential for cross-examination about delay and missed opportunities. An application for leave to cross-examine C about other, later opportunities to complain was made and granted. That was not done on the basis that section 41 applied but on the footing that it called for reference to C’s bad character so that section 100 was engaged.

In evaluating the significance of this omission we bear in mind the points made by the prosecution. As a result of the application that was made, C was cross-examined about her failure to take other opportunities to complain about the appellant, including those in 2001. She also conceded in general terms that she had been in contact with authorities to whom she could have made such a complaint. However, the evidence relating to the events of 1998 is qualitatively different. This opportunity to complain was much closer in time to the period in which C alleged she was being repeatedly raped by the appellant. It was an occasion on which, as in MT & BH, the complainant did specifically complain about being sexually assaulted by a different man. It was also an occasion when, as C knew, the police had been notified and had taken steps to investigate that complaint.

In our judgment the fact that within a matter of months after the end of the period in which she said the appellant was raping her C made a complaint of rape against B but not about the appellant is a striking feature of the case of which the jury should not, on a proper analysis, have been left in ignorance.

The fact that questions and evidence on those lines were permissible without leave has a significant bearing on the next point, namely whether the defence should have been allowed to pose specific questions to C about whether it was things that B had done to her that accounted for the bad memories of which she spoke, her wish to blot these out with drink, and her suicide attempt. Questioning about the failure to complain about the appellant in 1998 would have put the fact of C’s complaint about B before the jury in any event. The appellant’s advocate could, and in our view should, have put his section 41 application on this basis. Moreover, instead of confining himself to the social security records he should have relied on the unused police records which were available and contained dates and much more detail. We venture to think that if this had been done the judge would probably have allowed the application.

The relevant provisions of section 41 are these:

“(1)

If at a trial a person is charged with a sexual offence, then, except with the leave of the court—

(a)

no evidence may be adduced, and

(b)

no question may be asked in cross-examination,

by or on behalf of any accused at the trial, about any sexual behaviour of the complainant.

(2)

The court may give leave in relation to any evidence or question only on an application made by or on behalf of an accused, and may not give such leave unless it is satisfied—

(a)

that subsection (3) or (5) applies, and

(b)

that a refusal of leave might have the result of rendering unsafe a conclusion of the jury or (as the case may be) the court on any relevant issue in the case.

(3)

This subsection applies if the evidence or question relates to a relevant issue in the case and either—

(a)

that issue is not an issue of consent; ….

(4)

For the purposes of subsection (3) no evidence or question shall be regarded as relating to a relevant issue in the case if it appears to the court to be reasonable to assume that the purpose (or main purpose) for which it would be adduced or asked is to establish or elicit material for impugning the credibility of the complainant as a witness.

(5)

This subsection applies if the evidence or question—

(a)

relates to any evidence adduced by the prosecution about any sexual behaviour of the complainant; and

(b)

in the opinion of the court, would go no further than is necessary to enable the evidence adduced by the prosecution to be rebutted or explained by or on behalf of the accused.

(6)

For the purposes of subsections (3) and (5) the evidence or question must relate to a specific instance (or specific instances) of alleged sexual behaviour on the part of the complainant (and accordingly nothing in those subsections is capable of applying in relation to the evidence or question to the extent that it does not so relate).”

For the purposes of section 41 “sexual behaviour” includes “any … sexual experience”: see section 42(1) of the 1999 Act.

Questions or evidence of the kind we are now considering would fall within section 41(1). That is clear from BJK. But such questioning or evidence would have been about a specific instance of sexual “behaviour”. It would not have gone to any issue of consent, there being no such issue in this case. The purpose would not be to impugn C’s “credibility as a witness” but to rebut or call into question the reliability of a specific aspect of her evidence, namely that her sexual experience of being raped by the appellant accounted for her suicide attempt. The requirements of section 41(3) would thus have been met. And to the extent that the aim of such questions or evidence was to rebut that aspect of C’s evidence, it would also pass through the section 41(5) gateway. It could have been confined so as to go no further than necessary to rebut that evidence. On that footing the court would have had to address the test laid down by section 41(2)(b) and consider whether refusing leave might undermine the safety of a conviction. If so, the court would have had a discretion in the matter.

In the context of the case as a whole the argument in favour of finding that section 41(2)(b) was satisfied and exercising discretion in the appellant’s favour would in our view have been a strong one. The Crown had understandably laid great emphasis on the link between the alleged rapes by appellant and C’s suicide attempt. The impact on C of being raped by B provided a credible alternative explanation. Otherwise, the defence had only C’s vague reference to “blotting out” bad memories to work with. More specific questioning would, in our judgment, have carried substantially greater weight than the very general question which trial Counsel was permitted to ask. That is so not least because the police disclosure revealed a temporal proximity between the suicide attempt and the disclosure about B, the gap in time being at most some three months. The social security records also provided a basis for exploring whether B’s conduct may have been operating on C’s mind within a matter of days of her suicide attempt. The objectionable element of the questions and evidence was the introduction of C’s report of her sexual experience involving B. But on the hypothesis we are considering that would be before the jury anyway.

We are therefore persuaded by Mr Wainwright’s first and third submissions under Ground 1. We are confident that these differences between the position as it was and as it should have been are material.

Mr Wainwright’s second submission has two elements, each of which forms part of the context to which we have referred. We will address each in turn.

The first concerns the passage in C’s recorded interview in which she said she had been asked by her mother if the appellant had done anything to her and had denied it. We have explored why that passage was not before the jury. The evidence is that, as is customary, the prosecution prepared an edited version of the transcript and provided it to the defence for response and comment. The passage in question was edited out by the prosecution. The trial advocate reviewed the proposed edits and responded, seeking the restoration of some passages but not this one. This is the kind of point that could, in some cases, have a rational and reasonable explanation. Passages of this kind have to be seen in their context, and attention must be paid to the potential drawbacks of putting that context before the jury. Here, though, no significant risk of collateral damage to the defence is apparent. There is no evidence that the advocate turned his mind to this particular passage. He has not addressed the issue in his McCook response. The point is of such obvious relevance that we are driven to the conclusion that it was simply overlooked. This is clearly an error of real significance.

The second element is concerned with the pieces of evidence that, in combination, suggest that C was or may have been working at the appellant’s shop in the early part of 1999, many months after the suicide attempt which, on her account, marked the end of a series of rapes by the appellant. Evidentially, this is a somewhat more complex point than the others. But we are satisfied that it is another point of genuine and substantial weight. It gains in potential significance when set alongside the other points under ground 1. For one thing, this evidence lends support to the view that the suicide attempt was not related to anything done to C by this appellant. We have no explanation of why this line of evidence and argument was not pursued at the trial and we are unable to identify any good or sufficient reason for that omission.

There are two reasons why the bad character evidence that is now relied on was not adduced at the trial. The first is that the single basis for admitting it that was advanced to the judge in oral argument was rejected by him. That was for good and sufficient reasons. That basis for adducing the evidence was, as all now agree, tenuous in the extreme. The second reason that the evidence was not adduced is, as we find, that the appellant’s trial Counsel decided not to press the contention that the MG5 contained important evidence going to C’s credibility. That aspect of the bad character application was abandoned.

Mr Wainwright submitted that the approach of the trial advocate is inexplicable. We agree. The advocate’s McCook response on this point maintains that he had intended, if the application was allowed, to put to C that she had made false allegations. That was clearly what lay behind the written application. It is however apparent from the transcript that the advocate did abandon that point. That is clearly how the judge understood the position. We find ourselves unable to comprehend the reasons the advocate gave at the time. He has not sought to support these in his response. C’s guilty plea to assaulting N was not a reason to give up on the bad character application. The plea undermined her initial case of self-defence. It lent support to the case that Counsel was advancing, that C’s initial allegations were false.

It does not automatically follow, of course, that this evidence should have been admitted or that its absence from the trial casts doubt on the safety of the conviction. In our judgment, however, the documentary records of what C told the police in October 2019 coupled with her later abandonment of self-defence and her guilty plea, amount to weighty evidence going to her credibility. That was a central issue in the case. The fact that she was maintaining a false defence to the assault charge at the time she complained of rape by the appellant adds to the potency of this evidence. This aspect of the bad character application should have been pressed by trial Counsel. If it had, then we think it likely that it would have been granted by the trial judge.

We also see some real force in the point that, on the Crown’s case about C’s role in the assault of late 2019, she was motivated by outlandish theories about Satanic behaviour at the N household. It seems to us that this could reasonably have been added to the bad character application and might have materially bolstered it. On the basis of the records we have seen, C’s guilty plea was entered on a “full facts” basis.

It is for these reasons that we granted the application to adduce fresh evidence allowed the appeal and quashed the convictions on counts 5, 6 and 7. On the application of the prosecution and having heard submissions on behalf of the appellant we directed a re-trial on each of those counts.