High Court refuses appeal by convicted rapist over response to telephone accusation

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] HCJAC 31
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Matthews

Appellant Darren Glass was convicted of five charges, including three rape charges, and imprisoned for eight years. He argued that the jury ought to have been directed that they required to be satisfied that he had heard the allegation, and in the absence of that direction a miscarriage of justice had occurred.

The appeal was heard in the High Court of Justiciary by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Beckett, with Lord Matthews and Lord Armstrong. G Brown, solicitor advocate, appeared for the appellant and Stalker, advocate depute, appeared for the Crown.

Talked over him

The complainer in charge 1, T, was a distant relative of the appellant. He had been staying with her and her mother, L, following the death of the complainer’s father. On a day when the complainer was due to go to school, the appellant took her to his flat in his work’s van and raped her. At the time of the offence, the complainer was aged 15 and the appellant was 27. The police were contacted after the complainer realised that she was pregnant and told L what happened.

At trial, the Crown relied on mutual corroboration using the evidence related to the complainer in the other rape charges, S. The familial relationship, including the significant gap in ages, was used to show the inherent unlikelihood of the complainer’s having consented, as was the appellant’s position. In addition, although there was some dispute as to how the call had been instigated, it was clear that on 7 June 2022, the same day that T made her disclosure, L had accused the appellant over the phone of raping her daughter, and said in her evidence that he had replied: “If you want to speak to me, then stop shouting at me.”

The evidence of the appellant was that L had screamed and shouted at him over the phone and called him names. When asked if he was accused of raping the complainer, he said no, and that she talked over him any time he tried to speak. In his charge to the jury, the trial judge directed them that silence in the face of an accusation could be construed as an admission of guilt if they accepted the Crown’s interpretation of what was said in the call.

It was submitted for the appellant that it was open to the jury to accept that L had made the accusation but that the appellant did not hear it. In these circumstances, an additional direction should have been given to that effect, and the judge’s failure to do so had led to a miscarriage of justice.

For the Crown it was submitted that there was nothing in the complainer’s evidence to suggest that he had not heard what L had said. Even if there had been a misdirection, there were additional sources of evidence that entitled the jury to convict on charge 1, as by convicting on charges 4 and 5 they must have accepted that the evidence of T was corroborated by that of S, the complainer in the other rape charges.

Addressed the issue

Lord Matthews, delivering the opinion of the court, began by summarising the core issue: “As indicated, it is not suggested that the jury would not have been entitled to regard the appellant’s silence in the face of an accusation of rape as amounting to an implied admission. The only issue is whether they should have been told that they could not so regard it unless the appellant had heard the accusation.”

He added: “It seems to us that any direction to that effect would simply have been giving the jury a glimpse of the obvious. Juries have to be credited with common sense. They should not need to be told that an accused’s reaction to something would be of no consequence if he had not heard it. That in itself would be sufficient to dispose of this appeal.”

Considering whether the trial judge’s directions were appropriate, Lord Matthews said: “The appellant’s evidence was not that he did not hear what was being said. He denied that the accusation of rape was made at all and explained what he said was being said to him. The judge’s directions were tailored to the evidence, as they should have been, and not to some hypothetical scenario.”

He concluded: “The approach of senior counsel both in cross-examination of the complainer’s mother and in his address to the jury was that the appellant could not get a word in edgeways. He asked the jury to consider whether or not the appellant would have been able to make anything out other than shouting down the phone towards him. The trial judge’s direction addressed the very issue which is at the heart of this appeal.”

The court therefore concluded that no misdirection had occurred, and refused the appeal.