R v Marc Alun Williams

On a renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction, the Court of Appeal will not re-try evidence that was available to and assessed by the jury. Where the defence had an opportunity to challenge alleged evidential gaps and investigative failures, and the jury were entitled to reach the verdicts, those matters do not establish a realistic prospect of success. A prosecution alleged to be an abuse of process should ordinarily be challenged by an application to stay at trial; the absence of such an application is material. Evidence available at trial but deliberately not relied on is not fresh evidence. A complaint that a juror was a police employee does not, without more, make a conviction unsafe.

The applicant was convicted at the Crown Court at Reading on 30 January 2024 of two counts of attempted sexual communication with a child, contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 and section 15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

After a single judge refused leave to appeal, the applicant renewed his application. He alleged failures in the police investigation, weaknesses in the technical evidence, abuse of process and non-disclosure. He also sought permission to rely on expert reports and family statements, and complained that a juror was a member of Thames Valley Police. The central issue was whether the conviction was unsafe or the proposed appeal had any prospect of success.

1. Application refused. The renewed application for leave to appeal was refused because the proposed appeal had no prospect of success.
2. The applicant’s challenge to the sufficiency and technical quality of the evidence did not provide an arguable basis for appeal. The evidence had been considered by the jury, and the applicant had been able to challenge it, identify alleged gaps and present his case. The jury were entitled to reach their verdicts on the evidence before them.
3. Alleged failures in the police investigation were also placed before the jury. The applicant did not establish that those alleged failures made the convictions unsafe. The contention that the prosecution was an abuse of process was weakened by the fact that no application had been made at trial for the prosecution to be stayed on that basis.
4. The expert reports were not fresh evidence. They had been obtained before trial but were not relied on after legal advice. The applicant also provided no evidence that an independent download of his telephone would have caused the experts to express different opinions. The statements from his sister and brother-in-law were in substance character references of the same kind as those already relied on at trial.
5. The fact that one juror was a member of Thames Valley Police was not, without more, a reason to conclude that the conviction was unsafe, particularly where no objection had been made at trial.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 30 October 2025, the court refused the renewed application for leave to appeal: [2025] EWCA Crim 1495.
• Crown Court at Reading: The applicant was convicted on 30 January 2024 of two counts of attempted sexual communication with a child.