R v Morteza Jodeiri-Lakpour

Evidence of a complainant’s earlier complaint is evidence of what the complainant said on another occasion. It does not provide independent support for the complainant’s evidence. A complaint direction should ordinarily make that clear where complaint evidence is adduced.

However, failure to give an appropriate direction does not of itself render a conviction unsafe. The appellate court must assess the omission in the circumstances of the case, including the real issue at trial, the relevance of the complaint evidence to that issue, the directions as a whole, and the evidence on which the jury were invited to decide the count of conviction.

The appellant was tried in the Crown Court at Oxford on counts of controlling or coercive behaviour contrary to Serious Crime Act 2015, section 76, and making a threat to kill contrary to Offences against the Person Act 1861, section 16. The jury acquitted him of the first count but convicted him, by a majority, of the second count. He received a suspended sentence and a restraining order.

He appealed against conviction on the sole ground that the Recorder should have directed the jury on the proper use of evidence that the complainant had made earlier complaints to other witnesses. The Crown accepted that such a direction should have been given, but contended that the conviction remained safe.

1. Appeal dismissed. The conviction for making a threat to kill was safe.

2. The court accepted the guidance in the Crown Court Compendium. Complaint evidence is part of the complainant’s evidence and is not independent confirmation of it. A complaint direction was appropriate in principle because several witnesses gave evidence of complaints made by the complainant.

3. Nevertheless, an omitted direction is not automatically a miscarriage of justice. Applying R v Stoddart 2 Cr App R 217, the court held that safety depends on the circumstances and on the relevance of the omission to the conviction challenged. The authorities, including R v AA [2007] EWCA Crim 1779 and R v Berry [2013] EWCA Crim 1389, illustrated that fact-sensitive inquiry rather than a single determinative rule.

4. On the section 16 count, the threats themselves were undisputed. The real issue was whether the appellant intended the complainant to fear that they would be carried out. The jury were correctly directed on that issue. Their principal evidence was the parties’ accounts, the contemporaneous recording, and its agreed translation.

5. The evidence of earlier complaints concerned the separate coercive-control count. The witnesses had no direct evidence of the words, context, tone, or intention on the night in question. The Recorder directed the jury to decide the counts separately, invited them to focus on the directly relevant evidence for the threat count, and the jury acquitted on the coercive-control count. It was fanciful to suppose that the jury used the complaint evidence to resolve intention on the threat count.

6. The directions and summing-up, including the good-character direction and the treatment of the appellant’s no-comment answer, gave further assurance that the verdict was safe.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Dismissed the appeal against conviction in [2024] EWCA Crim 97.
• Crown Court at Oxford: The appellant was acquitted of controlling or coercive behaviour under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, but convicted of making a threat to kill under section 16 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861. He was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with unpaid work, a programme requirement, and a five-year restraining order.