Rogers v R

An appeal based on inconsistent verdicts succeeds only where the appellant establishes both an inconsistency and that no reasonable, properly directed jury could rationally have returned the challenged verdict. Credibility and reliability are not indivisible qualities. A jury must assess each count separately. It may be sure of one allegation while unconvinced of others, and may return different verdicts where the evidence permits that course. Appellate intervention in a verdict founded on the jury’s assessment of witnesses is therefore confined to compellingly unusual or obvious cases in which no legitimate chain of reasoning can explain the result.

The appellant was tried at Lewes Crown Court on four counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault involving three teenage complainants. At the close of the prosecution case, the trial judge withdrew the rape counts because there was insufficient evidence of lack of consent. He left the underlying allegations to the jury as indecent assaults, since consent was irrelevant given the complainants’ ages.

The jury acquitted the appellant of every count except one allegation by S, on which it convicted by a majority. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. With leave of the single judge, he appealed on the ground that the conviction was logically inconsistent with the acquittals and was therefore unsafe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The conviction was not unsafe merely because the jury acquitted the appellant on all other allegations. The trial judge had correctly directed the jury to consider every count separately and had made clear that different verdicts were open to it.
2. To overturn a conviction for inconsistency of verdicts, an appellant must establish not only an inconsistency but also that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have reached the verdict. There must be no legitimate chain of reasoning capable of rationally explaining the apparent inconsistency.
3. The court followed the approach in R v G [1998] Crim LR 483. Credibility and reliability are not indivisible. A jury may accept part of a witness’s evidence and reject another part. It must decide, on all the evidence, whether it is sure of each individual allegation.
4. The jury could rationally have been sure of S’s evidence about the first incident while not being sure about later allegations or the evidence of the other complainants. Its verdicts therefore did not defy rational interpretation.
5. Cilgram [1994] Crim CR 861 was to be treated as turning on its particular facts. It illustrated that appellate intervention may exceptionally be required, but did not displace the governing approach in R v G. A court will ordinarily interfere with a verdict based on the jury’s assessment of witnesses only in a compellingly unusual or obvious case.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Dismissed the appeal against conviction: [2004] EWCA Crim 489.
• Lewes Crown Court: The appellant was convicted by a majority of one count of indecent assault after trial before His Honour Judge Scott-Gall and a jury. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment.