R v Scott 2025


On 22 January 2024, S was convicted of two charges of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship and one count of intimidation against W, with whom S had a daughter. Both counts of controlling or coercive behaviour charged a continuing course of conduct between December 2015 and July 2020.
 
Count 1 related to humiliation – S would make derogatory comments in public about her weight, her clothes and her makeup. Clothes of which he did not approve would either disappear or would be cut up.

Count 2 – S would take W’s telephone without her permission and look at the messages and photographs on it. He would access her social media accounts and send messages to her contacts. S would question W about the people she was communicating with and ask why they were on her account. On one occasion, S deactivated W’s Facebook account, thereby controlling who she could speak with and socialise with. As a result of S’s behaviour, W lost friendships. Her contact with family members was also affected. On two occasions, with two different cars, when W refused to give S a lift in her car, he took them without permission and crashed them – and on the second occasion asked her to lie to the police about what had happened and report the vehicle as stolen.

Count 3 – S telephoned W and threatened her and told her to withdraw her support for the prosecution.

The grounds of appeal upon which leave was granted were said to demonstrate cumulative and incremental bias on the part of the judge. It was accepted by S that, whilst no single ground may be sufficient, the overall effect is that S’s convictions were unsafe. The grounds are outlined below.
 
  1. The trial judge diminished the standing of the defence counsel before the jury by asking counsel to cross-examine in language that would be understood by W when she became confused by the tenses he was using; and, when he forgot to do this, the judge corrected him.
     
  2. In relation to count 2, in her evidence in chief, W had not mentioned the pressure S had put her under to lie to the police regarding the crashed vehicle and so the judge asked questions to prompt W to provide this information. Had he not asked the questions, the evidence would not have been before the jury.
     
  3. The route to verdict was inappropriate and such as to make the conviction more likely because the judge defined controlling and coercive behaviour and set out a list of behaviours which could be considered to be controlling and coercive, which reflected the behaviour alleged against S. Therefore, the jury were led to a particular view of the facts.
     
  4. The judge exhibited bias to the jury because he told them to disregard telephone and Facebook messages from W that were of significant probative value. 
     
  5. The judge's direction in relation to what S did or did not say in interview had led the judge to propose to give an adverse inference direction because S had not answered questions in interview, save for the provision of prepared statements. In the event he was persuaded that this was not the appropriate course and he agreed that an adverse inference direction would not be given and instead he reminded the jury that they had agreed facts in relation to the S’s arrest and interviews. He then said:
 
"He [the appellant] always went 'no comment' in his interviews, but he also tended to hand in a reasonably lengthy document giving his side of things, but then not wishing to answer any question, and that [a reference to the agreed facts] is all summarised for you in here. In relation to the 'no comment' answers, I must direct you as a matter of law not to hold his 'no comment' answers against him."
 
It was argued that the language was not sufficiently neutral; it was tendentious.
 

Held


Appeal dismissed. Conviction upheld.
 
  1. The use of language by counsel had confused the witness. The judge properly asked counsel to change his use of language. Counsel agreed. When he fell into error, the judge politely corrected him.
  2. It was understandable that the judge took a step to elicit further detail, however, the information gained was not a significant part of the offence. The judge's questions did not amount to an impermissible departure from his role as the impartial umpire or referee.
  3. None of the examples given by the judge in his route to verdict involved behaviour that was not coercive or controlling; rather the reverse. The judge was entitled to assist the jury in tethering the wealth of evidence they had heard to the allegations.
  4. The jury were not told to disregard the messages. They were invited to consider that they were not central to the case and that they should not be too distracted by them.
  5. The judge used the word ‘tended’ because it did not happen once. When he was interviewed on different occasions, S would say, "I am not saying anything, but here is a prepared statement". That means that he tended to hand in a prepared statement. The language used was very clearly neutral and it reflected what was set out in the agreed facts.
None of the grounds had any merit. Whether cumulatively or otherwise, they do not demonstrate any bias in the trial judge
 

View the full case document here, with links to related legislation and similar cases.

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