Mr S
Published:
Mr S was convicted in December 1997 of rape and received a sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.
The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in July 2001.
In police interview Mr S had remained silent and he did not give evidence at trial.
However, the judge did not direct the jury that they must be satisfied that the prosecution had established a sufficiently compelling case to answer before drawing any adverse inferences from silence.
The CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would find the omission of this direction affected the safety of the conviction.
The CCRC referred the conviction in October 2001.
The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in February 2002.