Andrew Hockton helps doctor win his appeal - Court of Criminal Appeal- June 2007

Dr Mark Andrew Pepperman, represented by Andrew Hockton of 3 Serjeants' Inn, has been released from prison after the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction for two counts of indecent assault. The appeal succeeded on the principal ground that the trial judge failed in his summing up to give the jury adequate directions concerning inconsistencies in the evidence of one of the complainants and the circumstances in which the complaint was made. The complainant had made an accusation of indecent assault against Dr Pepperman seven years after the alleged incident and after watching a television programme about abusive doctors. A major plank of the defence at trial was that the complainant's account contained considerable inconsistencies/contradictions (which could not be attributed to the elapse of time) and that her evidence might have been contaminated, albeit innocently, by the content of the television programme. Criticism was also made of the trial judge's direction on delay. The Court of Appeal (presided over by Sir Igor Judge, President of QBD) held that the criticism of the summing up was well-founded and that the conviction was unsafe.