Accountant Accused of Sexual Assault – Case Dropped

Case study summary

Our client had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in bar. He was completing his training to become an accountant and a conviction for this offence could have ended his career. Our specialist sexual offence lawyers persuaded the prosecution to drop the case before trial.

Case study

We were approached by a trainee accountant; a young man who had never been accused of any offences before.

He had been charged with sexual assault after a woman in a bar had accused him of touching her buttocks over clothing without his consent. Our client denied this charge. He accepted that he had been on a night out with his partner and had visited several bars. He thought he had enjoyed a good evening and was shocked when he was arrested whilst leaving one of the bars.

It emerged that a woman had made this accusation against him and had pointed him out to bar staff, who phoned the police.

Having never been in this situation before, our client represented himself during the interview and explained to the police that this simply did not happen. He expected this allegation to go away as it was not true but was surprised when he was charged with this offence. Terrified fo the implications, he instructed our specialist criminal lawyers to represent him.

After being instructed on the case, we analysed the evidence. The whole incident was covered by CCTV, and the CCTV showed our client walking past the women in what was a busy bar. It was very clear from the video that there was no deliberate sexual assault, and any contact was likely to have been purely accidental.

We took a two-stage approach to preparing this case. Firstly, we aimed to persuade the prosecution that this was a case that should not go to trial. However, we also prepared to fight the trial if needed. We hand-selected an experienced barrister to represent our client and started gathering evidence of our client’s exemplary character to show the CPS and a potential jury that our client was not a man who would act last this.

The prosecution accepted our arguments and agreed to offer no evidence against our client. This meant a formal not guilty verdict was entered and our client avoided having to go through a trial. He was very relieved that this case had been brought to a swift end and has been able to continue focusing on his promising career.