Leave granted for man to appeal conviction

A Queenstown man has been granted leave to appeal his assault conviction.

Jacob Mitchell Cummings was convicted on a charge of male assaults female, following a judgealone trial.

Cummings and the complainant were in a relationship at the time of the assault.

The initial incident occurred when Cummings’ partner found him accessing pornography on his cellphone in their bedroom. The court documents say the complainant tried to take the phone and he restrained her by putting his arm around her neck and throat and holding her onto the bed.

An appeal was filed following Cummings’ conviction, which was dismissed.

Late last month, his lawyer filed a second appeal application and the leave to appeal was granted by the Court of Appeals.

The grounds of the proposed appeal were that Cummings’ evidence was not challenged in cross-examination.

The appeal application says there was a credible narrative raising the defences of selfdefence and defence of property, which the judge was required to make specific findings on.

Cummings’ lawyer also argued that both accounts of the incident were not completely ‘‘at odds’’ with each other.

The appeal document says ‘‘we do however accept that there is a risk of a possible miscarriage of justice unless the appeal is heard arising from the failure to crossexamine Mr Cummings about the incident in the bedroom.’’