Millennium Chambers is pleased to report a successful outcome secured by Kira Chana, who acted as sole counsel for the defendant in a privately instructed sexual assault matter heard before a jury.
The defendant, a taxi driver of no previous convictions, faced a charge of sexual assault alleged to have been committed against a female passenger in the early hours of the morning. The complainant had been out with friends and was, by her own account, significantly intoxicated at the material time. The defendant maintained throughout that he was not the individual responsible and advanced a defence of mistaken identification.
The Crown relied upon three pillars of evidence in support of the charge: a payment said to link the complainant to the defendant’s vehicle; CCTV footage; and the complainant’s identification of the defendant as her assailant.
In cross-examination, Ms Chana systematically addressed each strand of the prosecution’s case. She established that the payment relied upon by the Crown could not reliably be attributed to the defendant’s vehicle. In respect of the CCTV, she demonstrated that the footage was of poor quality and lacked the clarity required to draw any safe conclusions, and that it did not establish which taxi the complainant had entered. Ms Chana also drew the jury’s attention to the layout and movement of other vehicles at the cab rank, highlighting the absence of continuity evidence to account for their positions. On the question of identification, the complainant accepted in cross-examination that she had been drunk, that it was dark, and that her opportunity to observe the individual she alleged had assaulted her was limited.
In her closing speech, Ms Chana drew together each of these threads and invited the jury to conclude that the Crown’s case was, in its entirety, unreliable.
The jury returned a not guilty verdict after approximately two hours of deliberation.
Kira Chana appeared for the defence and was instructed by Appleby Shaw.
