DCB, R. V

Factual and Procedural Background

Reporting restrictions under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 applied in this matter and the victims were anonymised. The Appellant pleaded guilty on 12 August 2022 at the Crown Court at The City to one count of robbery and accepted an offence of failure to surrender. On 15 August 2022 at the Crown Court at The City the Appellant was convicted after a trial (Trial 1) of four counts of sexual activity with a child and one count of rape; he was acquitted of some further counts. On 13 January 2023 at the Crown Court at The City the Appellant was convicted after a second trial (Trial 2) of multiple counts including assault of a child under 13 by penetration and rape; he was acquitted of other counts. On 31 January 2023 the Appellant was sentenced: a determinate sentence of two years for the robbery (with a concurrent 14 day sentence for failure to surrender) and, consecutive to that, a total 20-year extended sentence for the sexual offending comprising a custodial term of 12 years and an 8-year extension period; various concurrent and concurrent determinate sentences were passed for the remaining offences. Ancillary orders were also made.

The factual matrix as summarised in the Court of Appeal Office (CAO) summary was that Trial 1 concerned sexual offending involving a 15-year-old Complainant (referred to in the original material as A), including an instance of vaginal rape occurring at the complainant's home after earlier contacts through a friend and social media. Trial 2 concerned offences against two family-member complainants (referred to in the original material as B and C), beginning when those complainants were aged 10 and 5 respectively and including touching, digital penetration and, in one count, rape; one charged occasion of rape related to an incident when the complainant was aged between 10 and 12 and the Appellant was older, and another related to an occasion in early 2022 when that complainant was aged 14. The robbery took place on 7 April 2022 at a shop where the Appellant was detained by staff until police arrived.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether the Appellant should be granted extensions of time for leave to appeal convictions arising from Trial 1 and Trial 2, together with bail and representation orders following prior refusals by the Single Judge.
2. Whether the convictions from Trial 1 and Trial 2 are arguably unsafe, including challenges based on alleged non-disclosure or misuse of unused material and alleged unfairness arising from perceived closeness between defence representatives and the prosecution.
3. Whether the admission of the Appellant's previous convictions from Trial 1 at Trial 2 (bad character evidence) was lawful and/or unduly prejudicial.
4. Whether the Appellant's sentence (including the extended sentence and its custodial element) was manifestly excessive.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellant's Arguments

• The Appellant attributed delay in making applications to stress, despair, and reliance on initial defence advisers who, he says, discouraged appeals and withheld material; after consulting another solicitor he believed he had grounds and assembled material late.
• For Trial 1, the Appellant alleged that trial solicitors prevented him from viewing unused material (in particular text messages from the Complainant in Trial 1) that would have demonstrated the complainant had fabricated allegations or otherwise undermined her credibility.
• The Appellant alleged an improper or overly familiar relationship between his solicitor and the prosecuting officer (naming specific practitioners in the original material), contending that his solicitor followed prosecution proposals and failed to represent his interests properly; similar complaints were made about subsequent defence counsel.
• For Trial 2, the Appellant submitted that the trial judge wrongly admitted the Appellant's previous convictions from Trial 1 as bad-character evidence.
• As to sentence, the Appellant submitted that onerous bail conditions leading to job loss should have been treated as mitigation, and contended that probation officers were biased by contacting the prosecution and that this contributed to a finding of dangerousness and a higher sentence.

Respondent's Position

The opinion records that the Crown filed a Respondent's Notice and that the Crown's response was before the court. The Respondent contested the Appellant's complaints and supported the Single Judge's rejection of the extension and merit arguments. The opinion does not set out detailed, separate submissions from the Respondent beyond noting that responses and refutations were provided to the Appellant's criticisms and were considered by the Single Judge and the court.

Table of Precedents Cited

No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The court proceeded in a structured way. First, noting that the Appellant had waived privilege so that trial solicitors and counsel could respond to the criticisms, the court reviewed those responses, the Single Judge's reasoning, and the Crown's replies. The Single Judge had rejected lengthy extensions of time primarily on the grounds that the delays in raising complaints about representatives affected their credibility and that the Appellant's references to the opinion of an unnamed solicitor lacked substance. The Court of Appeal agreed with that assessment and independently examined each ground to determine whether any arguable case of unsafe conviction or manifestly excessive sentence was raised.

On the Trial 1 conviction challenges, the Single Judge (and the court) analysed each ground:

• Complaint that defence solicitors denied access to unused material: the court treated this as far-fetched, observed that no complaint had been made at trial, and noted that the assertions were refuted by the Appellant's previous representatives.
• Complaint of an overly friendly relationship between defence counsel and the prosecution: the court found these allegations unsupported, generalised, and refuted by the trial lawyers' responses; they did not show unfairness or that convictions were unsafe.
• Assertion that unused material contained messages demonstrating fabrication by the complainant: the court recorded that the unused material comprised some 600 pages, was disclosed as unused material and later a bundle was agreed; there was no documentary evidence produced to support the Appellant's specific claims about particular messages and no evidence to contradict the Crown's account. The Single Judge found the submissions lacked identifiable arguable merit and the Court of Appeal agreed.

On the Trial 2 conviction challenges, the court dealt principally with the complaint about admission of previous convictions as bad-character evidence. The court upheld the Single Judge's ruling that the convictions from Trial 1 were properly admitted under section 101(1)(d) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 because they demonstrated a sexual interest in female children and non-consensual offending and therefore were relevant to propensity and pattern. The record of agreed facts (admitted pursuant to section 10 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967) was noted. The court concluded there was no arguable basis to say that admission was wrong in law or rendered the trial unfair. The court again rejected the Appellant's generalised complaints about his lawyers as unsupported and not establishing unfairness.

On sentence, the court accepted the Single Judge's reasoning: the bail conditions and associated job losses provided at most slight mitigation and did not render the sentence manifestly excessive. The court found no impropriety in probation officers obtaining material from the prosecution and no evidence of bias; the judge's view that the Appellant was dangerous was supported by the facts and the pre-sentence reports and was described as essentially inevitable given the offending involving younger female family members. The court concluded the overall extended sentence, including a custodial term outside normal guidelines given the number and nature of offences, was not excessive.

Holding and Implications

All of the Appellant's applications (for extensions of time, leave to appeal convictions and sentence, for bail and for representation orders) were refused.

Implications: the convictions from both Trial 1 and Trial 2 and the imposed sentences were upheld. The court found no arguable basis that the convictions were unsafe or that the sentence was manifestly excessive. The decision was applied to the parties before the court and the opinion does not purport to create or depart from binding precedent; it upholds the Single Judge's determinations on delay, credibility of criticisms of representatives, admissibility of bad-character evidence under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and the proportionality of the sentence in light of the offending and the assessed risk of serious harm.