R v BGZ

In an appeal alleging inconsistent or repugnant jury verdicts, the appellant bears the burden of showing that the verdicts cannot stand together: no reasonable jury, properly applying its mind to the facts, could have reached them. A jury may be sure of a complainant’s credibility or reliability on one count and not another, absent a specific direction requiring a different approach. Separate counts must be considered separately. Overlapping evidence, a common witness and inconsistencies do not by themselves make mixed verdicts illogical where the evidence contains distinctions capable of explaining them.

Following a trial in the Crown Court, the applicant was convicted of one count of sexual assault of a child under 13, contrary to Sexual Offences Act 2003, after acquittals on two other counts. He received a suspended sentence of seven months’ imprisonment and a rehabilitation activity requirement. The single judge referred his application for leave to appeal against conviction to the full court. The applicant argued that the verdicts were inconsistent because all three allegations came from the same young witness and the conviction count was said to be inextricably linked to an acquitted count. The central issue was whether no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have reached that combination of verdicts.

Application refused.

1. The court applied the approach in R v Fanning and Others [2016] EWCA Crim 550; [2016] 1 WLR 4175. The appellant bears the burden of establishing that allegedly inconsistent verdicts cannot stand together, meaning that no reasonable jury properly applying its mind to the facts could have reached them. The judgment relied on the analysis in the unreported case of R v Stone, which it noted had been endorsed in R v Hunt [1968] 2 QB 433.
2. It was permissible for the jury to assess the same witness’s credibility or reliability differently on different counts, absent a specific direction requiring a common assessment. There was evidence capable of supporting each count. The trial judge directed the jury to consider each count, its elements and its evidence separately, and expressly permitted mixed verdicts.
3. The jury could rationally distinguish the allegations. The evidence concerning the acquitted allegation included leading questions in the ABE interview, whereas the allegation resulting in conviction had been an unprompted feature of the victim’s evidence from the time of the first disclosure. The court declined to second-guess the jury’s reasoning. The counts did not stand or fall together, and the high hurdle for establishing inconsistent verdicts had not been met. Leave to appeal against conviction was therefore refused.

1. Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — The single judge referred the application for leave to appeal against conviction to the full court. The full court refused the application: [2026] EWCA Crim 873.
2. Crown Court — Following trial, the applicant was acquitted on two counts and convicted on one count of sexual assault of a child under 13. He was sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a rehabilitation activity requirement.