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First Direct Access Criminal Case

The Defendant stood trial on one allegation of common assault of his 8 year old. The Defendant is a solicitor who was alleged to have committed the offence in a car during an access visit. The complainant IT made an immediate complaint to her mother and was thereafter seen in a hospital, where an A & E doctor noted an injury to her head. As a result of the complaint the Defendant was not allowed to see his daughter for 8 months. At an earlier hearing the judge had ruled that the mother’s statement which contained the first complaint could be read during the trial under the hearsay provisions. Had the Defendant been convicted it is very difficult to see how he could have continued to practise or have any unfettered access to his daughter. 

The Defendant instructed Martin Sharpe directly as a lay client under the Bar’s Public Access rules. The complainant IT gave evidence through a pre-recorded video interview and was then cross-examined. At the end of her evidence the judge stopped the case, indicating that in his opinion it should never have been brought and granting a full defendant’s costs order to cover all the costs the Defendant had incurred.  These were substantial and included four hearings in which counsel had had to attend, most of which involved complex disclosure applications and the instruction of a consultant paediatrician who had had to attend the trial.

19th January 2012