Meredith v Lees
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 18 March 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 22. |
| Date | 18 March 1992 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
JC
L. J.-G. Hope, Lords Allanbridge, Weir.
Evidence—Sufficiency—Corroboration—Lewd, indecent and libidinous practices—Accused confessing to indecent acts with four year old girl—Whether complainer's evidence of sufficient quantity and quality to corroborate accused's confession.
The accused was charged with lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards his niece, who was four years old at the time of the alleged offence and five years old at the time of the trial. The accused confessed to having handled her private parts and to have rubbed his private member against her leg. The complainer gave evidence, while pointing to her stomach, that the accused had touched her on her leg and that this was not nice and that she did not like it, and that the accused had been lying on her. The sheriff considered that the child was telling the truth and, applying what he took to be the rule that, where there was an unequivocal confession, very little was required in the way of corroboration, he convicted the accused. The accused appealed to the High Court, arguing that because of the lack of detail in the complainer's evidence there was insufficient evidence to corroborate the confession.
Held (1) that where there was an unequivocal confession there must be evidence of a sufficient quality to provide an independent check of the guilt of the accused; (2) that it was for the sheriff to assess the quality and weight of the complainer's evidence, taking account of her age and of her ability to understand and express herself; and (3) that his conclusion that her evidence was consistent with the confession and that it was sufficient to corroborate the confession was one he was entitled to reach in the circumstances; and appeal refused.
Sinclair v. ClarkSC 1962 J.C. 57 considered.
Observed that there was a risk that, by describing the requirement to corroborate an unequivocal confession in minimal terms, and by elevating it into a rule, there would be a weakening of the principle that there must be a sufficient independent check of the confession to corroborate it.
Ronald Norman Robert Meredith was charged in the sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders at Edinburgh on a summary complaint at the instance of Robert Ferguson Lees, procurator fiscal there, the libel of which set forth a charge of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards a four year-old girl. After trial the sheriff (Bell) convicted the accused who appealed to the High Court by stated case.
In his note, the sheriff stated inter alia: "The next question, and the one which gave me the greatest difficulty, was whether or not [the appellant's confession] had been corroborated. I accepted the evidence of the child in the sense that I thought she was not lying and was speaking about an incident which had happened to her. I had little difficulty in holding that her evidence was truthful. I did not consider she was making up what she had said nor did I think that there was any evidence, and to be fair there was no suggestion, that anyone had persuaded her to say anything different. Nevertheless there was clearly, in my opinion, some difficulty in her apprehension of exactly what had happened and her putting it into words. I also considered she was likely to have forgotten to some extent what had happened due to the passage of time. I considered that she was clearly speaking about the same incident as the one to which the appellant had confessed. The question, however, was whether her evidence was capable of amounting to corroboration of his incriminating statement. I considered it was. … What was in issue was whether a crime had been committed by the appellant against the child on the day and at the place libelled and the essence of such a crime was the indulging [in] indecent practices towards the child. I considered that as a matter of law it was incorrect to say that details of the particular kind of indecent practices required to be corroborated. Applying my mind as I considered a jury would apply its mind to it, I considered that what we had in this case was a truthful confession from the accused, corroborated by evidence of indecent practices from the child, which did not correspond in detail with the confession, partly because of defects in understanding on the part of the child and partly because of the passage of time making her forgetful. I am bound to say that I had some difficulty in deciding what the correct conclusion was in...
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Indexes
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