Stuart Eyre [2019] EWCA Crim 1465

**R v Stuart Graham Eyre** [2019] EWCA Crim 1465 concerned a renewed application for permission to appeal against conviction for historic sexual offences, which the Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Davis, Mr Justice Lewis and Mr Justice Julian Knowles) refused.

On 10 March 2017 in the Crown Court at Kingston the applicant, now aged 66, was convicted on four counts of indecent assault on a male, three counts of indecency with a child and one count of attempted buggery. The single judge refused permission to appeal against conviction on the papers.

The offences dated from the early 1970s when the applicant was in his early twenties and lodging with the family of the complainant, who was born in 1965 and was aged between approximately eight and thirteen at the time of the alleged abuse. About forty years later the complainant reported the matter to police. He had suffered mental difficulties including depression during his life and had sought counselling and psychiatric therapy. He first disclosed the abuse to a therapist called Ravi Rana whilst he was a student and was subsequently referred to the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis.

The sole ground of appeal, for which the applicant also sought an extension of time of 432 days, was that newly discovered evidence showed that, unbeknown to the jury, the complainant had undergone a course of therapy with a therapist who may have influenced the complainant’s allegations. The applicant contended that had this been known at trial the defence would have been able to make a strong abuse of process or section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 application, and that the convictions could not be regarded as safe.

The Court rejected this ground for several reasons. First, the jury had in fact known that the complainant underwent therapy with Ravi Rana. Secondly, it had been part of the defence case, put to the jury, that the complainant had undergone a significant amount of therapy and mental intervention between about 1993 and 2003, exploring issues including his relationships with his parents, his sibling, his work and his sexuality. The defence had suggested that as a result of counselling it may have been suggested to the complainant that his problems stemmed from childhood experiences.

The applicant sought to rely on material relating to Ravi Rana’s therapeutic methods, drawn from a book she had written, to suggest that she engaged in a particular form of therapy which might have involved her suggesting that abuse had happened rather than the complainant disclosing what had in fact occurred. The single judge had refused permission on the basis that the applicant had produced no evidence to substantiate the assertions that the counselling may have influenced the complaint, and that the assertions amounted to no more than making criticisms of Ravi Rana’s method from her book.

The Court agreed with the single judge’s reasoning. The material relating to Ravi Rana did not properly constitute evidence and there was no proper basis for admitting it as fresh evidence. There was no proper basis for contending that the material would have led to a successful application to stay the trial on grounds of abuse of process. The Court emphasised that the possibility that the complaint may have been suggested by, rather than disclosed to, the therapist had been before the jury. The jury had rejected that contention and were sure that the acts were committed as the complainant alleged. The Court therefore refused permission to appeal.

The Court also refused the application for an extension of time, holding that as there was no arguable ground of appeal there was no purpose in extending the time for bringing the appeal. In short, the Court found that the alleged fresh evidence concerning the therapist’s methods did not render the convictions unsafe where the possibility of suggestion had already been squarely before the jury at trial.