Yasen v R: Establishing the Threshold for Identification Evidence to Be Left to the Jury

Introduction

This appeal arises from the decision of the England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) handed down on 17 January 2025 in Yasen, R. v ([2025] EWCA Crim 452). The appellant, Mr Yasen, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court of one count of trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation and three counts of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring rape. He received a total sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment. On appeal, he challenged (1) the refusal of his application of no case to answer based on alleged flaws in the identification evidence, (2) the exclusion of evidence of a previous mis-identification by the complainant, and (3) the adequacy of the judge’s directions about the complainant’s confusion regarding a location called the “Red Shop.” The leading issue was whether the identification evidence was so inherently unreliable that the trial judge should have directed an acquittal without putting the case to the jury.

Summary of the Judgment

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on the first ground and refused permission on the second and third grounds. It held that:

The judge had applied the correct legal test in considering the no-case application and was entitled to conclude that the identification evidence—direct and circumstantial—could properly be left to the jury.
Evidence of the complainant’s prior mis-identification in an unrelated case was irrelevant to her reliability in this case and rightly excluded.
The summing-up adequately covered the complainant’s confusion about the “Red Shop” and no further direction or detail was required.
Overall, the appellant’s conviction was safe.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

The main authority considered was R v Stewart [2012] EWCA Crim 2488, concerning the admissibility of evidence of a witness’s erroneous identification in separate proceedings. The Court distinguished Stewart on the basis that the earlier error related to a different suspect in wholly different circumstances and did not bear on reliability in the present case. The principle that honest witnesses can nonetheless make mistakes was noted as a standard summing-up direction, requiring no special proof. The Court also referenced R v Reynolds [2019] EWCA Crim 2145 to confirm that a judge need not recite every piece of evidence in detail.

Legal Reasoning

1. No Case to Answer Test
The appeal court reaffirmed that, to succeed on no case to answer, the defendant must show that the evidence against him is so weak or inherently unreliable that no reasonable jury properly directed could convict. The judge’s analysis of the complainant’s VIPER identification, her description of the driver’s ethnicity, age, build, and the strong circumstantial support from addresses in Dewsbury, Wakefield and Sheffield, met that threshold.

2. Direct vs. Circumstantial Evidence
The court emphasized the cumulative effect of slender direct evidence (the VIPER pick out after 12 years) and corroborating location evidence. It rejected the argument that factors such as intoxication, mis-estimation of height, or the complainant’s description of “skinny” fatally undermined the reliability of her identification.

3. Exclusion of Prior Mis-Identification Evidence
The Court held that an identification error in unrelated proceedings, involving different individuals and contexts, was neither relevant nor necessary to illustrate that identification witnesses can err. The standard jury direction sufficed.

4. Summing-Up on the “Red Shop”
The judge’s summing-up had specifically noted the complainant’s admitted confusion about the shop’s opening date and her own testimony that she never met the appellant there. Further detail was neither required nor desirable where the jury had already been properly directed to treat the confusion as a matter affecting weight.

Impact

This decision clarifies how appellate courts approach no-case-to-answer applications based on identification evidence. It underscores that:

Circumstantial corroboration of identification—such as address and movement proofs—can reinforce a witness’s memory long after the fact.
Errors in peripheral details (height, precise shop names, drink or drug use) generally go to weight, not admissibility.
Evidence of prior mis-identifications in unrelated cases is likely to be excluded as irrelevant where a standard judicial warning about mistaken memory suffices.
Judges enjoy broad discretion over the scope of their summing-up; completeness is balanced against case management and jury fatigue.

Complex Concepts Simplified

No Case to Answer: A legal threshold: if the prosecution’s evidence is so weak that no jury could safely convict, the judge must acquit before the defence puts on its case.
VIPER Identification: A video-based identification parade allowing a witness to view multiple facial images simultaneously.
Circumstantial Evidence: Clues that, taken together, support a fact (e.g., living near locations where offences occurred) without directly observing the event.
Contaminated Evidence: Evidence that may have been influenced or confused by external events, such as mixing up the timeline of a location opening.

Conclusion

Yasen v R confirms that appellate courts will not lightly overturn a trial judge’s ruling to leave identification evidence to the jury where there is both direct and corroborative support. Peripheral inconsistencies go to credibility and weight, not to the legal sufficiency of the case. The ruling also reaffirms the exclusion of tangential evidence of prior mis-identification and clarifies the judge’s latitude in summing-up complex factual details. This decision will guide trial and appeal courts in managing identification evidence, no-case applications, and the scope of jury directions in future criminal proceedings.