Judge condemns Crown Prosecution Service for pursuing sex case

The kid was the victim of a tease

A judge has criticised the Crown Prosecution Service for shoddy evidence and said a case should never have been brought to court after a former pupil at a £30,000 a-year public school was cleared of sexually assaulting a friend.

Archie Reed, 20, was accused of sexually assaulting the 19 year-old woman when they shared a bed at her student digs after a drunken night out in central London.

Judge Anthony Morris QC had urged prosecutors to pull the case before the trial had even begun and criticised the CPS for its shambolic evidence during the trial.

Judge Morris said he would never have allowed the case to go ahead if he had known that the allegations had not been properly investigated.

When the CPS opted to press ahead despite the judge’s reservations, the trial was beset with problems as gaping holes in the police investigation emerged.

The woman had claimed Mr Reed had pulled off her pyjama bottoms and knickers while she slept, and only stopped groping her when she screamed for him to leave.

But Reed claimed that he "picked up the wrong vibe" after she kissed him and invited him to stay in her bed when he missed his last Tube home.

Blonde-haired Reed was cleared of assault by penetration by the unanimous verdict of the jury of five men and seven women.

The judge told prosecutor Dianne Chan: "These were people who were good friends of each other, close friends who spent the evening drinking quite a considerable quantity of alcohol together, at the end of which the allegation is the defendant in a drunken state took advantage of her.

"It is something which he bitterly regretted as soon as it happened and he was stopped in the course of it.

"Some might say to go through the process now is going to make matters worse rather than better, but that's a matter for the complainant and the Crown."

The incident happened after Reed and the woman met for a drink at the Northumberland Arms pub in Tottenham Court Road on October 8 last year.

She had already drunk more than two glasses of wine at a reception held by a top law firm, and told a friend she was 'getting p*ssed' that night.

She and Reed then shared two bottles of white wine as they shared gap year stories, before leaving the pub at 1am.

The woman, a student in London, offered to let Reed stay at her university halls, as his last Tube had already left.

She claimed Reed attacked her while she was asleep, climbing into her bed and pulling off her clothes before trying to rape her.

However, CCTV showed the pair holding hands and hugging on their walk home.

After the woman gave evidence, Judge Morris cleared Reed of attempted rape due to lack of evidence.

Reed said he had decided to "go for it" after she had kissed him and invited him into her bed, saying she had grinded her bottom against his groin while they were 'spooning'.

He touched her intimately and when she told him to stop a confused Reed said he left soon afterwards.

"I had obviously made a mistake with a friend", he said.

"I thought I had completely read the wrong signals.

"I knew it would take a long time to rebuild our relationship.

"I was also really confused because I wasn't sure why she had freaked out all of a sudden."

However, a fortnight later a bewildered Reed, a currency consultant at Smart Currency Business, was hauled in by police for questioning, and asked the officer: "Am I going to prison?"

He was charged five months later, but the case against him began to unravel as soon as the two-week trial began.

The jury struggled to follow a video interview with the alleged victim, and it was left to the defence team to produce a transcript.

Police experts had been unable to download key texts sent and received by the woman, and had resorted to taking photos of the screens which were barely legible.

Forced into yet another adjournment because evidence was not ready, Judge Morris exclaimed: "I would never have started this case if I had known it would take this course."

It then emerged that vital messages sent by the alleged victim hours after the incident had been wiped.

Police were forced to admit they had not seized her phone after she first complained, and waited six months before starting to analyse it.

An increasingly exasperated Judge Morris said: "I would have expected that to be taken from the complainant at the time of her interview and examined there and then.

"That is a shortcoming of the investigation of this matter."

When he learned that the alleged victim had not been questioned about the missing texts, the judge criticised the Crown Prosecution Service for opting to pursue the case.

"Sometimes it would be helpful for someone from the CPS to be in court and see the problems created at cases which aren't investigated properly, and the consequences, instead of being at the end of the phone opining whether cases should go ahead or not."

In terse exchanges with Ms Chan, the judge asked whether the CPS knew "what a mess had been made of the telephone evidence".

Reed's defence team narrowly failed to have the case against him thrown out entirely, and then brought forward a string of glowing character references.

The former head girl at his school described Reed as a 'gentleman' who could always be trusted to look after his friends.

Carl Hasty, the director of Smart Currency Business, said he was 'astonished' when he heard about the charge.

"I find it difficult to believe Archie would commit such an offence", he said.

Reed, of Kensington, west London, denied attempted rape and assault by penetration.

He walked free from court after being discharged by the judge. His barrister Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC said she was considering making a wasted costs application in addition to her client's defence costs because of the way the case was handled.

The judge said any costs application would be heard at a later date.

Original report here

　

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