Not Guilty verdict - Sexual Communications with a child

Case study summary

Our client was accused of sending sexual communications to a girl under the age of 16. He had always argued that she had told him she was 16. We fought his trial and challenged the prosecution witnesses and evidence. The jury returned not guilty verdicts after just 45 minutes.

Case study

Our client was accused of Sexual Communication with a child contrary to s.15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The allegation was made by a girl he knew after they had been sending sexual messages to each other via texts and social media. When he found out her true age they had an argument about this, following which she told the police that he had always known she was only 15 years old. Her friend then made a similar allegation that he also had sent sexual messages to her and she too was 15 years old at the time.

Our client was a young man with no previous convictions. He was terrified having never been charged any type of offence previously. He contacted our firm after he had been charged as he was seeking specialist advice.

We gathered all of the prosecution evidence and pressed for further information which we believed would support his defence. After carefully preparing his case, we instructed an expert barrister who specialised in sexual offences.

By the time of trial, we had meticulously prepared all of the arguments to demonstrate to the jury that our client was telling the truth. After only 45 minutes of being sent away to deliberate, they returned not guilty verdicts on both counts.

Our client and his family told us that they felt they had been in a nightmare for over two years but we had helped put their minds at ease through the whole process and they could move on with their lives following the verdicts.