We represented a vulnerable young adult who had been charged with offences of robbery and malicious communications.
It was the Crown’s case that our client had robbed the complainant and months later, proceeded to send him threatening messages in which he admitted robbing him. Unrepresented in his police station interview, our client made admissions that he had robbed the complainant and accepted sending the messages.
Nonetheless, we took detailed instructions from our client and it quickly became apparent that he had communication difficulties and did not always express himself correctly. Whilst our client accepted that property had been taken from the complainant, he instructed that the property belonged to him in the first place; meaning that no robbery had in fact occurred. He accepted sending abusive messages but stated that this was due to a campaign of abuse and threats made by the complainant and his associates.
We made arrangements to examine our client’s mobile phone and found significant evidence which considerably undermined the complainant’s credibility and supported our client’s account of what happened. In addition, following a conversation with the officer investigating the case against our client, it became apparent that the complainant had stopped engaging with the police. Following this, we made oral representations to the Crown that firstly, they had insufficient evidence to prove their case but secondly, the evidence that we had found significantly undermined the complainant’s credibility.
Following our representations, the Crown offered no evidence against our client on the basis that they no longer had sufficient evidence to prove their case and formal not guilty verdicts were recorded.
Our client was represented by Sabrina Neves of our East Dulwich Office and Elena Papamichael, one of our in house Higher Court Advocates.
