Joseph Jacombs [2019] EWCA Crim 1158

The applicant was convicted at a retrial of outraging public decency and was sentenced to a community order which has been completed. He was a police officer who was seen by a lady on a bus masturbating at the wheel of his car. He sought to introduce fresh evidence that analysis of the prosecution evidence disc showed his phone was accessing the home Wi-Fi at the time, so he was at home not on the road and also that the complainant was known to him and his ex-wife. He also said that there was a police failure to secure evidence from the
complainant’s phone of the car registration, and they failed to check CCTV or ANPR to show his car was not on the road.

Held: the so-called proposed new evidence leads nowhere. There was ample evidence before the jury that the applicant had been in his car at the relevant time, there was also the very striking factor of the video on his phone showing a man (not the applicant) driving alongside a bus and masturbating whilst a woman on the bus looked into the car. The renewed application was refused.