R v Hindley: Court of Appeal upholds historic abuse convictions despite good character gap

The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has dismissed an appeal against convictions for historic child sexual abuse, holding that a trial judge would have done better to give an additional good character direction, but that the omission did not make the verdicts unsafe.

Lord Justice Holgate, sitting with Mr Justice Griffiths and Mr Justice Dexter Dias, gave judgement in R v Hindley [2026] EWCA Crim 1336 on 16 October 2026. The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 applies and the complainant cannot be identified.

Conviction and sentence

Christopher Hindley was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court on 9 June 2025 of 17 counts, relating to offending alleged to have taken place between October 1989 and October 1995. The delay between the alleged offending and trial was between 30 and 36 years.

On 21 July 2025, Her Honour Judge Pierpoint imposed a special custodial sentence under section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020 on the lead count of attempted buggery. The custodial term was 12 years with a one-year extended licence. Sentences on the remaining counts ran concurrently.

The Criminal Appeal Office had noted that the two attempt counts were framed at common law, when they could or should have referred to section 12 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and the Criminal Attempts Act 1981. The parties made no representations, and it was not suggested that the point affected the safety of the convictions.

The grounds

Leave to appeal was granted by the single judge. The central question was whether the trial was fair, which turned on the adequacy of the judge's directions on delay and good character. No other aspect of the summing up or the conduct of the trial was criticised.

Mark Barlow, for the appellant, argued that long delay had left the defence essentially confined to denial and good character. He said the judge should have gone beyond standard Crown Court Compendium wording to address closed lines of inquiry and the burden of proof, and that a reference to delay affecting witnesses risked treating the prosecution and defence as "two sides of the same coin". He also contended that the judge should have added a further limb to the good character direction, relying on R v Percival (1998) and R v PS [2013] EWCA Crim 992.

Delay directions

The court rejected those submissions. Drawing on Graham W and Brian M, it reiterated that Percival is not a blueprint and that the content of a delay direction is for the trial judge in light of the issues. The judge's direction covered each of the four elements identified in PS. It addressed the growing difficulty of meeting an allegation over time, told the jury to weigh delay when deciding whether the Crown had proved its case, and identified specific prejudice, including lost CCTV material and the complainant's inability to date incidents, which had prevented the appellant advancing an alibi.

The defence was also more than simple denial. It had challenged the late complaints, relied on agreed medical evidence undermining part of the complainant's account, called supporting evidence on opportunity and tested the complainant in cross-examination. The judge had not suggested that weaker recall among prosecution witnesses helped the Crown. Leaving the medical evidence out of the delay direction, having dealt with it in summing up, was not a misdirection.

Good character

The judge gave the standard credibility and propensity limbs, and summed up the evidence of the appellant's positive character. The court reviewed JS, GJB and the Northern Ireland decision in BZ, and concluded that whether to add a further limb, reflecting the absence of any allegation over the intervening decades, is a matter of judgement for the trial judge. An appellate court should interfere only where that judgement was not properly open, applying R v Hunter [2015] EWCA Crim 631.

Holgate LJ said it would have been preferable for the judge to have included the additional direction. Even so, the convictions were not unsafe. The delay directions were sound, there was no other flaw in the summing up, and the defence had run a substantial case beyond good character. Trial counsel had also been content with the directions as delivered, which the court treated as a good indication that the trial was seen as fair.

The appeal was dismissed.