[2025] EWCA Crim 1042

C was born in 2000. Her parents, who were devoutly religious, moved the family to a remote rural area when she was very young, and schooled her at home. In consequence she had little contact with the outside world. When C was aged around 11 or 12, she was introduced to the Appellant by her much older sister, who worked with him. The appellant was then in his fifties. He began to contact C regularly by phone.

The prosecution case was that when C was aged between 13 and 16 the appellant engaged in the persistent and determined grooming of her to the point where she became completely dependent upon him. The appellant created a biblical fantasy world which C came to believe in wholeheartedly. He told her that he, she and her sister were angels and that he had been put on earth to protect her sister but had decided to protect her too, in order to avoid her falling into a life of misery at the hands of the devil which would lead to her death aged 23 years and 3 days. He told her that he loved her and showered her with compliments, but he also told her that if she ever hurt him or failed to follow his teaching, she could lose his protection and his protective angels would exact revenge on her.

When C was 13, she expressed curiosity in kissing and, despite the age gap between them, the appellant offered to show her how. This was the start of sexual abuse over the course of the next three years that took place in the appellant’s home or in hotels and incrementally increased in seriousness. The appellant told C that she needed to become sexually experienced at a young age before experiencing full sexual intercourse at the age of 16, so that she was not sexually vulnerable to men. When at times she expressed reluctance, he would encourage her to be braver or challenge whether she truly loved him.

When C turned 16 she moved in with the appellant. Although to the outside world she appeared to be his lodger, the truth was that they began a full penetrative sexual relationship. The prosecution case was that C had been so brainwashed by the appellant that she was convinced that because of her status as an angel she could never be with anyone else and that without his protection she would die, and therefore her apparent consent to the sexual relationship was not properly informed and free consent.

C was so utterly controlled by the appellant that when he got into financial difficulties he persuaded her to perform sex acts on the internet in return for payment. She would give him some of the money she was earning. On one occasion he persuaded her to have sex with him on camera whilst someone was watching over the internet.

Eventually when C was around 20 years old she managed to break free of the relationship. In 2021 she reported the appellant to the police, and he was arrested. Although he initially denied all the allegations in interview, the police seized his phone and found thousands of messages between him and C dating back to 2012, many of which were adduced in evidence at trial. They also seized computer equipment, on which they found thousands of sexual images including videos. Some were of C, taken without her knowledge, some were of other children. Others showed that the appellant had for many years engaged in what is colloquially known as “upskirting” in public places and whilst working as a paramedic.

Although the appellant eventually entered guilty pleas to the majority of the counts on the indictment, he denied that he had used coercive and controlling behaviour during his relationship with C after she moved in with him, and he maintained that all the sexual activity with C after she turned 16 was fully consensual. Consequently, the issues of whether C consented to full sexual intercourse, and if she did not consent, whether the appellant reasonably believed that she consented, were at the heart of the case.

On 19 May 2023, in response to concerns articulated by the trial judge about whether the prosecution could prove the offence of rape in the absence of evidence of the complainant explicitly saying “no”, prosecuting counsel created a document entitled “Summary of the prosecution case and the evidence” which set out the prosecution case on grooming and the evidence which was relied on to support it (including numerous text messages from the appellant to C). Having read that document, the judge accepted that his initial concerns were misplaced, and the trial continued without any further suggestion by the judge (or by defence counsel) that there was no case to answer on counts 14 and 15.