APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION AND SENTENCE BY CA

Factual and Procedural Background

The Appellant was convicted of two charges: the first for contravening section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, and the second for contravening section 38(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010. The Appellant received a sentence of three years' imprisonment for the first charge and an admonition for the second. The appeal concerns the first charge and challenges the sheriff's directions on the corroboration requirements for offences under the 2018 Act, as well as contending that the sentence was excessive. The charge detailed a series of thirteen types of abusive behaviour alleged to form a course of abusive conduct, with corroborative evidence presented for at least four of these behaviours.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the sheriff erred in directing the jury on the corroboration requirements for a charge under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, specifically regarding the necessity to corroborate individual acts within a course of abusive behaviour.
2. Whether the sentence of three years' imprisonment was excessive given the circumstances of the case.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• Each subheading of the charge represented a separate criminal allegation requiring individual corroboration before conviction.
• The sheriff’s direction permitted conviction based on uncorroborated acts if they formed part of a course of conduct, which the Appellant argued was incorrect.
• The Appellant distinguished the case from Finlay v HMA, contending that the corroboration principles applied there should not extend to the current offence under the 2018 Act.
• It was submitted that Parliament could not have intended to abolish the need for corroboration of individual criminal acts within a course of behaviour.

Respondent's Arguments

• The Crown contended that the rationale in Finlay v HMA applied equally to offences under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.
• The directions given by the sheriff regarding corroboration were correct and consistent with statutory interpretation and established case law.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court analysed the corroboration requirements in the context of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, focusing on the statutory definition of the offence as a "course of behaviour" involving at least two incidents. The court distinguished this from traditional corroboration rules requiring each separate criminal act to be corroborated, as established in cases such as Dalton and Spinks. It noted the clear legislative intent to treat a course of behaviour as a single offence, corroborated by evidence of at least two incidents, allowing the jury to consider uncorroborated incidents as part of the same course.

The court relied on the reasoning in Finlay v HMA, which addressed corroboration for a course of conduct under a different statute but with similar principles. The court found that the corroboration directions given by the sheriff, drawn from the Jury Manual and supported by the unpublished DF opinion, were consistent with the statutory framework and prior case law.

The court rejected the Appellant’s submission that Parliament could not have intended to relax corroboration requirements, noting the policy memorandum accompanying the Act explicitly intended to allow prosecution of various abusive behaviours over time as a single course of conduct requiring corroboration of the course itself rather than each individual act.

Regarding sentence, the court found the three-year custodial sentence appropriate given the severity, duration, and nature of the abusive behaviour, which included serious violence and emotional abuse. The court held that the sentence was not excessive.

Holding and Implications

The appeal against conviction and sentence is REFUSED.

The court held that for offences under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, corroboration must establish a course of behaviour involving at least two incidents, but individual acts within that course need not be separately corroborated. This confirms the statutory scheme and aligns with the policy intent to facilitate prosecution of ongoing abusive conduct as a single offence. The decision affirms the appropriateness of the sheriff’s directions and the sentence imposed. No new precedent was established beyond clarifying the application of existing principles to the 2018 Act offence.