WILLIAM LECKIE BROWN v. HERE MAJESTY'S ADVOCATE

May 2014 The Trial [1] On 17 January 2013, at the High Court at Glasgow, the appellant was convicted of repeated indecent assaults on his two stepsons on various occasions between 1975 and 1984, including the sodomy of the younger one. On 14 March 2013, he was sentenced to a cumulo period of 8 years imprisonment.

[4] The trial judge reports that the complainers both found testifying in court deeply embarrassing and humiliating. Both were openly distressed at times. Both spoke to the traumatic effects which the abuse had had upon them.

The Appeal [5] On 30 July 2013, the appellant lodged a Note of Appeal on the basis of what he maintained was new evidence. This evidence, which was supported by affidavits, was said to come from 3 relatives: namely JB, EB and JPB. At some point prior to the trial, the first complainer had spoken to JB, in the presence of EB and JPB, "in terms which suggested he was falsely implicating the appellant in a crime that was yet to come to trial". The police had taken a statement from JB prior to trial, on 16 March 2012, but nothing of this nature had been reported.

[7] JB's wife, EB, deponed that she had overheard the complainer saying "It wasn't me. It was [H]" who had been sexually abused. She stated that she "had no knowledge at the time that [the appellant] had been charged with sexual abuse" although she had been aware of allegations in relation to both complainers. JB's son, JPB, swore an affidavit in similar terms, saying also that at the time, he did not know that the appellant had been charged with sexual abuse.

[8] In terms of a further affidavit sworn on 24 February 2014, JB said that the meeting was "probably a couple of months" before the trial. In amplification of the terms of his prior affidavit, he recalled that: