Mr BY

Mr BY was convicted in January 2000 of buggery, rape and indecent assault. Mr BY received a sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in November 2002.

Mr BY was said to have committed offences against five teenage girls resident at a children’s home and one younger girl who was fostered by him. All of the offences were said to have taken place in the mid-1980s.

At trial, six counts of indecent assault were added to the indictment as alternatives to the rape counts in the event that the jury were unsure on the question of consent.

In 2004, the House of Lords in the case of R v J considered whether it was an abuse of process for the Crown to prosecute a charge of indecent assault in circumstances where the conduct on which that charge was based was unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 16 but where no prosecution could be brought for unlawful sexual intercourse due to the expiry of the 12-month time limit on this charge.

The House of Lords ruled that it was not permissible for the Crown to charge indecent assault in such circumstances.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility Mr BY’s convictions would be quashed on the basis of this change in law.

In addition, the CCRC obtained new material from the medical records of one complainant. This material potentially undermined their credibility as a witness.

Further counts of indecent assault (those that had not been charged as alternatives to rape) were referred on the basis of delay and a significant loss of documentation regarding a contemporaneous allegation which a complainant had made and then abandoned.

Other counts of indecent assault concerning another complainant were referred on the basis that, had other pre-trial allegations made by the complainant been disclosed to the defence, the defence might have cross-examined the complainant about those allegations.

The CCRC referred 12 of the 14 counts in March 2007.

The Court of Appeal quashed eight of the counts in May 2008 and reduced the sentence to ten years’ imprisonment.