Court of Appeal, Criminal Division

Published January 1, 2008

Regina v Carrington-Jones

Before Sir Igor Judge, President, Mr Justice Pitchford and Sir Richard Curtis

Judgment October 16, 2007

It would not normally be sufficient for the police merely to caution the maker of a false allegation of serious sexual crime.

The Court of Appeal, Criminal Division, so stated when allowing an appeal by David Carrington-Jones, on a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, against his conviction on December 15, 2000 at Lewes Crown Court (Judge Richard Brown and a jury) of four counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault against two sisters for which he was imprisoned for a total of ten years.

Mr Jonathan Cooper, assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals, for the appellant; Mr Warwick Tatford for the Crown.

THE PRESIDENT, giving the judgment of the court, said that, after the appellant’s trial, events in 2001, 2002 and 2004 demonstrated that the older complainant had a proven tendency to make false allegations that she had been a victim of sexual crime. Then in 2006 she admitted that she had fabricated allegations of rape against her stepfather because she did not like him and, as a result, she received a police caution for wasting police time.

The complainant’s credibility had thus been damaged beyond repair and the new evidence had had a direct impact on the way that allegations made by her younger sister would have been viewed by the jury.

Their Lordships said that although no one doubted that victims of rape had to be treated with every possible consideration by the criminal justice system, a false allegation could have dreadful consequences for an innocent man who had not perpetrated the crime.

Also, every occasion of a proved false allegation had an insidious effect on public confidence in the truth of genuine complaints, sometimes allowing doubt to creep in where none should exist.

There would not be many cases where the offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice, on the basis of a false allegation of rape, should not be prosecuted for what it was.

Solicitors: Crown Prosecution Service, Lewes

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