Rapist who criticised lawyer's 'guilty plea' advice denied appeal

Saturday 21 January 2023

A rapist whose lawyer advised him to plead guilty to the crime rather than face a trial – which eventually found him guilty – has been told he cannot appeal against his conviction.

The man – who was anonymised in the Court of Appeal’s recently-published judgment – was jailed and put on the Sex Offenders Register for rape and sexual assault.

He appeared before the court to argue for permission to try to overturn his conviction – even though the application was made three years too late.

While applications for appeal must normally be brought within a 28-day deadline, the offender argued that there had been delays in providing him with his legal paperwork and in securing information from the Police. He also pointed out that he was unrepresented and had been refused legal aid.

But Commissioner Sir William Bailhache, sitting as a single judge, said that the applicant had provided a “wholly inadequate” explanation for the delay. 

Sir William found that the defence advocate in the original trial had previously given advice that an appeal had no likely grounds of success, although the advocate also made it clear that his client could still pursue an appeal himself but had to lodge notice within the prescribed period.

In any case, the Commissioner found that the man had “no seriously arguable case” and had not established “a good prospect of success”.

The sex offender had complained that he felt “put under pressure” to admit to rape and sexual assault by his advocate. In the end, he pleaded ‘not guilty’ and faced a trial, but was found guilty by a jury.

Sir William found that the lawyer “was entitled to reach the view that a ‘not guilty’ plea would be unlikely to be successful and if so, he would be acting entirely in accordance with his duty to advise the applicant that this was his view of the evidence because, if that view were correct and was nonetheless disregarded, the applicant would suffer considerably by the loss of the mitigating factor of a guilty plea on sentence.”

Having considered all of the arguments put forward by the man, Sir William concluded: “In all the circumstances, I cannot see that on the information provided to me, there are any reasonable prospects of success.

“Accordingly, both because the Applicant has not provided a satisfactory explanation for not entering a Notice of Appeal on a timely basis or for the delay subsequently in making the present application, and because the grounds of appeal show no seriously arguable case, yet alone establish a good prospect of success, the application for an extension of time to appeal conviction is dismissed.”