A man who was convicted of indecent practices against young boys between 1993 and 2011 appeal has been refused by the High Court of Justiciary.

Appellant DW was convicted of two accounts of vulgar, indecent practices one at common law and another under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. 

The appeal was heard by Lord Matthews, Lord Boyd, Lady Wise, Paterson, solicitor advocate appeared for the appellant and Ewing, solicitor advocate for the Crown.

There were two different charges the accused had been convicted off. Charge one libelled conduct on different occasions between 1991 and 1993 and charge two libelled conduct between June 2020 and April 2011. 

It was argued for the appellant that it could not be said that the individual instances for charge one and two which took place many years apart could be said to be component parts of one course of conduct despite there being similarities.

Therefore it was argued that the gap between both charges was too great to allow for mutual corroboration and the trial judge was wrong to repel a no case to answer submission in respect of charge two.

Although, it was argued that the trial judge was wrong to repel a no case answer Lord Matthews delivered the opinion of the Court and stated that the Sheriff was correct to repel the submission of a no case answer. The reason for this is the Court was seeking for conventional similarities of time, character and circumstance of each crime.