Rethink over ‘honest rapist’ trial tactic

A sex offender who opted to tell a jury, ‘‘I’m an honest rapist’’, has had second thoughts about the tactic.

The man, now serving an 18-year jail term, has appealed against convictions including sexual violation, indecent assault, and assault with a weapon.

At his district court trial in 2018, the man accepted his lawyer’s advice to allow the jury to hear evidence of old convictions for having raped his wife. The evidence would otherwise have been excluded from the trial.

It was possible the man might have received credit for admitting his convictions, saying, ‘‘I’m an honest rapist’’, and ‘‘I didn’t do what I’m now accused of’’, his new lawyer, Andru Isac, QC, said at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday.

It was a radical and high-risk strategy, but the man’s previous lawyer was very experienced and well able to ‘‘pull rabbits out of hats’’, Isac said.

The defence intended reference to the previous rape convictions to be in a brief written statement, but witnesses expanded on it, and the Crown prosecutor included it in his opening and closing addresses.

It was not until the end of the trial that the judge gave jurors directions about how they could legitimately use the evidence to come to their verdicts. Also, issues of general violence and sexual violence became tangled and the judge did not untangle them, Isac said. The man’s other lawyer, Esther Watt, said regardless of the decisions of the man and his lawyer, the trial judge still had a duty to ensure no evidence was given that would result in an unfair trial.

Crown lawyer, Fergus Sinclair, said the man wanted to be seen as transparently honest and repentant, and be believed when he said he did not abuse his son.

It was the man’s choice to mount the defence he wanted and he would have had grounds for complaint if the judge had limited the evidence, Sinclair said.

But once the information was before the jury it also could be used to explain why his son did not resist at the time and did not complain until much later.

The Court of Appeal reserved its decision. Some details were suppressed.

It was a radical and high-risk strategy, but the man’s previous lawyer was very experienced and well able to ‘‘pull rabbits out of hats’’ Andru Isac, QC