Anver Daud Sheikh 2 Court of Appeal 5 Feb 2004
This series of 5 appeals concerns Anver Daud Sheikh and St Camillus Care Home, Tadcaster, Operation Juno and perhaps Operation Courier Cathy Fox Blog Index and Timeline of Court Appeals and Documentation [2] Redaction Some reports have had victims names redacted and some assault details redacted. This is a difficult balance- normally I would think that I should not “censor” details but on consultation with various people I have taken the decision to redact. This is mainly to protect victims, their friends and relatives from unnecessary detail and to stop the gratification of those who seek salacious details. In addition to the obvious “victims redaction” to protect victims, there may also be “assault redacted” across most of the spectrum of abuse. The assaults are left in the charges, but mainly redacted when repeated with reference to the individual. Some redaction may obscure sometimes the legal reason for the appeal, but should make no large difference to the vital information for researchers that these documents contain. That vital information is mainly names of the perpetrators, past addresses, instituions where assaults occurred, the actual charges the perpetrators faced – on which newspapers are pathetically inaccurate and this information enables the links between people and places and abuse at various times to be ascertained. Some transcripts may have been subject to automatic reading softwware and whilst effort has been made to correct these, the text should not be regarded as definitive. Alias letters are not transferable between appeals. If you think that the balance is not correct or that a particular redaction needs reconsideration, please say. Cathy Fox Blog Index and Timeline of Court Appeals and Documentation [2]
[2004] EWCA Crim 387
No: 200203361/B1
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2
Thursday, 5th February 2004
Lord Justice Kennedy
Regina v Anver Daud Sheikh
Computer Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes of Smith Bernal Wordwave Limited 190 Fleet Street London EC4A 2AG Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838 (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR M BARLOW appeared on behalf of the APPELLANT
MR J GOOSE QC appeared on behalf of the CROWN
JUDGMENT
(As Approved by the Court)
1. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: What we propose to do is to allow the appeal on ground 6 but to adjourn our decision as to whether or not to order a retrial. Three weeks —something like that. I do not want to make it unreasonable.
2. MR BARLOW: The enormous difficulty is that I leave the country on Wednesday and am away until the end of February.
3. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: There is no reason why it should not be suited to your convenience. That puts it slightly longer, not before 1st March, or some time early March.
4. MR GOOSE: That answer, I was not going to seek longer whether it could be done quicker.
5. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, that sort of timescale, does that seem —obviously you have to have time to consider it when you come back.
6. MR BARLOW: Am I right in my understanding that your intention is to adjourn for a short time to enable the Crown to make enquiries then—
7. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: I do not think he needs any adjournment at all, he is in a position to agree what we each put to him.
8. MR BARLOW: My Lord, can I address the Court in relation to my argument that there should not be a retrial full stop.
9. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: If you want to do it on the present information, yes. We will hear you, of course, in March if you wish to when we have the other information to hand.
(Submission re: re-trial)
10. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: What we propose to do is that which we have already indicated, that is to say, we propose to allow the appeal and give our reasons for that in a moment on ground 6. So far as the application for a retrial is concerned, we are going to adjourn that matter. It will be re-listed on a date in March, and from what we have been told by Mr Barlow, you are back on 1st March, Mr Barlow. We make it not before 4th March. You need to have some time to have an opportunity to see what is then available and possibly to take instructions on it. It may not be on 4th March, of course. We want to set parameters. For the reasons I warn you of this which are connected with commitments of one us, it will be before 22nd March, so it is in that window it will be re-listed. We will try, with the assistance of your respectively clerks, to fix a date which is convenient to everybody. But, that is the course we propose to follow. The reason for the adjournment is to enable, as we have already indicated, a senior police officer to re-interview both [A] and [B]. We would like the interview to be conducted in such a way that it is video recorded and the result of that interview must of course be made available to the Court and to the respondent. It may be that in light of re-interviews the Crown take a certain view. If they do, they may need not make the material available to us. They certainly need to make it available to the defence. So far as the substantive appeal is concerned, the decision of the Court will be given by Penry-Davey J.
11. MR JUSTICE PENRY-DAVEY: On 9th May 2002 in the Crown Court at York following a three day trial this appellant was convicted of two offences of buggery for which he was sentenced to 8 years' imprisonment on each concurrent and two of indecent assault on a male for which he was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment on each concurrent, that is concurrent with each other and with the sentence on the other counts, a total of 8 years' imprisonment.
12. On 14th July 2003 the Full Court granted him leave to appeal against conviction limited to three grounds. Two related to fresh evidence and the third to the question of whether or not the appellant was employed at the children's home at the time when it was alleged that he had committed offences against a resident called Goddard.
13. By letter dated 15th January 2004 the Crown Prosecution Service wrote to solicitors for the appellant, stating that the prosecution would not seek to resist the appeal against conviction any further and, on the basis of the final ground on which leave was given, conceding that the conviction of the appellant was unsafe. That conclusion Mr Goose, on behalf of the Crown, has repeated this morning, though ultimately of course the safety or otherwise of the conviction is a matter for the Court. Having considered the basis on which the Crown have approached the matter, we agree with that conclusion.
14. The case concerned allegations made many years later by two residents at a children's home near Tadcaster. The trial proceeded on the basis that the appellant had been employed at the children's home as a house master between about 1979 and 1983.
15. When he was interviewed the appellant said that he had no recollection of either complainant and no clear recollection of when he was employed at the school. The complainant, Goddard, then aged about 14, was admitted to the home on 1st August 1980 and discharged on 15th August 1982. Fresh evidence now establishes that the appellant was employed at the home until 31st August 1980 and was probably a member of staff for approximately a year up to that time, that is over the academic year 1979/1980.
16. If that is right it appears that for a period of about a month Goddard and the appellant would both have been at the home. However, in his statement Goddard described the circumstances leading to the episode of sexual abuse. He spoke of conversations with the appellant when he, Goddard, spoke about his problems and the appellant listened. He said that he had told the appellant that a boy called [C] , a boy from Sheffield, had beaten him up and was going to do it again. He described the appellant's reaction to that. The fresh evidence also establishes the identity of the boy, C, and that he was admitted to the home on 13th August 1981 and thus was not there at the same time as the appellant. That material was not available to the defence at trial and the Crown concede that its absence renders unsafe the conviction in respect of Goddard.
17. That has a knock-on effect because the judge directed the jury that each complainant's account was capable of providing support for the account of the other and vice versa. He identified the similarities in the accounts to the jury. In those circumstances, the convictions on the remaining counts relating to the other complainant are necessarily rendered unsafe. Accordingly the appeal against conviction is allowed and the conviction is quashed.
18. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Mr Barlow, the conviction having been quashed it seems to us that your client is entitled to his liberty. There is no reason to make any other order. Of course, if a retrial is ordered, then we would have to consider whether or not, pending the retrial, he simply remains at liberty or whether he is required to answer to bail and the probability is that, at that stage, he should be granted bail.
19. It is very important —I say to you and I say it to him —that he maintains contact with the solicitor acting for him and instructing you because otherwise the situation could arise —I do not wish to be saying, I do not want to have people looking for him and that would be to his own detriment.
20. MR BARLOW: There is no difficulty I know, he simply wants to go home.
21. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Mr Sheikh, I do not know whether you understood that when I was talking to your counsel. You will be released now but you must keep your solicitors informed as to where you are living. All right. Because they will want to keep in contact with you. Particularly, they want to keep contact with you over the next couple of months. All right.
22. MR BARLOW: My Lord one further application that I make, that is in relation to an appellant's cost order to cover the work done by counsel up to the time when leave was granted and the representation order was made.
23. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Yes, you may have such order.
24. MR GOOSE: My Lord, I raise one matter bearing in mind in relation to this and these trials concerned were made by the court at first instance in relation to the reporting.
25. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: I did wonder about that. Do you want to have such an order made in the short-term?
26. MR GOOSE: That is my application. I am conscious of the fact that there is obviously interest in reporting the result of the day but that of itself ought not to be inhibited. The concern that we have only is the connection between the appellant and the establishment. So, if for example there were to be prohibition from any reporting which identified the appellant with St Camillus and the address rather than this is a home in the north, for example, given as it ought to be north rather than Yorkshire, that ought to reserve the position pending on retrial.
27. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: Is there anything you want to add to that?
28. MR BARLOW: I understand the reporting in relation to the establishment, a North Yorkshire home.
29. LORD JUSTICE KENNEDY: That has probably been heard. It is not a severe inhibition, but kept to a North Yorkshire home, and not identified by name. That would meet the requirements at this stage.
2016 Cathy Fox Blog Index / Timeline of Court Appeals and Documentation [2]
Please note that victims of abuse may be triggered by reading this information. These links are generally UK based.
The Sanctuary for the Abused [A] has advice on how to prevent triggers.
National Association for People Abused in Childhood [B] has a freephone helpline and has links to local support groups.
Other useful sites are One in Four [C]
and Havoca [D].
Jim Hoppers pages on Mindfulness [G] and Meditation [H] may be useful.
Hwaairfan blog An Indigenous Australian Approach to Healing Trauma [J]
Survivors UK for victims and survivors of male rape or the sexual abuse of men [K]
Voicing CSA group [L] helps arrange survivors meetings in your area
Links [2] 2015 Cathy Fox Blog Index / Timeline of Court Appeals and Documentation https://cathyfox.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/a-timeline-of-court-and-ewca-documentation-on-cathy-fox-blog/ [A] Sanctuary for the Abused http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/for-survivors-coping-with-triggers-if.html [B] NAPAC http://www.napac.org.uk/ [C] One in Four http://www.oneinfour.org.uk/ [D] Havoca http://www.havoca.org/HAVOCA_home.htm [E] SurvivorsJustice Triggers post http://survivorsjustice.com/2014/02/26/triggers-what-are-they-and-how-do-we-work-through-them/ [F] SurvivorsJustice Blog http://survivorsjustice.com/ [G] Jim Hopper Mindfulness http://www.jimhopper.com/mindfulness/ [H] Jim Hopper Meditation http://www.jimhopper.com/mindfulness/#cultivate [J] 2016 Jan 5 Hwaairfan blog An Indigenous Australian Approach to Healing Trauma https://hwaairfan.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/an-indigenous-australian-approach-to-healing-trauma/ [K] Survivors UK website for victims and survivors of male rape or the sexual abuse of men https://www.survivorsuk.org/ and twitter https://twitter.com/SurvivorsUK [L] Voicing CSA website – http://voicingcsa.uk/ helps arrange survivors meetings in your area. Voicing CSA supports the IICSA and VSCP and works to help adult survivors of child sexual abuse find their voice This is all written in good faith but if there is anything that needs to be corrected please email juno@cathyfox.33mail.com cathyfox the truth will out, the truth will shout, the truth will set us free “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” – Edmund Burke “He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.” Charles Peguy To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men – Ella Wheeler Wilcox