Scottish judges asked to overturn rape case rule ‘barrier’

Judges are being requested to overturn an 87-year-old rule in a transfer which might enable extra rape allegations to achieve court docket.

Scotland’s high regulation officer is looking for the change after two sexual offence trials final yr resulted in acquittals.

The ruling which dates again to 1937 limits what will be accomplished with statements made by an alleged sufferer shortly after an alleged crime.

The Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC is asking for that to be overturned.

She needs the judges to agree that such statements can be utilized as a separate supply of proof {that a} crime had taken place and the individual accused of committing it was accountable.

Her request is scheduled to be heard over two days on the Excessive Courtroom in Edinburgh.

The problem on the coronary heart of all of it is corroboration, a singular cornerstone of Scotland’s prison regulation for many years.

The requirement for corroboration means there must be proof from not less than two sources to show the important info of a case.

When the alleged offence is rape, prosecutors want corroborated proof that the accused was the perpetrator, that the bodily act happened and there was no consent.

Campaigners have lengthy claimed that corroboration is a barrier to justice, notably in sexual offence circumstances.

Others argue it presents safety in opposition to miscarriages of justice.

The ruling in 1937 was made after a person known as Henry Morton efficiently challenged his conviction for indecent assault.

Morton was discovered responsible of indecently assaulting a girl in a tenement shut in Glasgow in 1936.

She was the one one who recognized him as her attacker and the conviction was quashed on attraction the next yr.

On the time, the judges who heard the case dominated {that a} assertion made by an alleged sufferer shortly after the alleged offence might solely be used to indicate that they had been constant of their account of what occurred.

In different phrases, it might help the competition that that they had been saying the identical factor all alongside, however nothing extra.

That ruling has been utilized ever since.

Final yr the Lord Advocate secured an vital change within the guidelines on proof of misery in rape circumstances.

She has adopted that up by asking the Excessive Courtroom to rule that the judges in 1937 had been unsuitable.

Dorothy Bain will argue that statements taken from alleged victims shortly after the offence needs to be allowed to corroborate different proof that the crime occurred and the accused was the perpetrator.

Regulation lecturer Dr Andrew Tickell, from Glasgow Caledonian College, mentioned it might quantity to a really important change.

“This may successfully be the top of corroboration as we’ve recognized it for nearly 100 years in Scotland,” he mentioned. “That could be a enormous intervention within the justice system.

“It might imply we might depend on the proof of a single witness probably to corroborate way over they will below the present regulation.”

If the Lord Advocate wins, it might imply extra circumstances involving rape and different sexual offences will go to court docket, though no-one can say what number of.

Dr Tickell mentioned that might quantity to a major change to Scots Regulation with out the approval of the Scottish Parliament and may enhance the strain on a court docket system already going through a significant backlog in circumstances.

“Corroboration is seen in two alternative ways,” he mentioned. “Some folks see it as a safeguard in opposition to wrongful convictions however different folks see it as a barrier to circumstances entering into court docket.

“You probably have a decrease corroboration threshold, it means you possibly can carry extra circumstances ahead.

“That doesn’t imply the jury will convict, it doesn’t imply they’ll be satisfied past affordable doubt, but it surely means the circumstances can get to court docket.”

The Lord Advocate’s request comes within the wake of two circumstances final yr which resulted in not confirmed verdicts, one other distinctive function of Scots Regulation.

The primary trial involved a girl in Edinburgh who instructed passers-by and the police that she had been raped by a person she met in a nightclub.

The second concerned the alleged abuse of two boys by their child sitter.

Regardless of the judges determine, it is not going to have an effect on the result of both trial.

Because the case in 1937 was heard by seven judges, the Lord Advocate’s arguments can be thought-about by a panel of 9.

It’s believed to be the primary time in additional than 40 years that so many judges have been introduced collectively to achieve such a choice.

Senior defence legal professionals will say that the regulation shouldn’t be considerably modified. The judges will challenge their choice at a later date.