Fact or Fantasy? The dangers of uncorroborated victim testimony in historic sex offences

Rupert Butler writes for the Solicitor Journal in “Fact or Fantasy?” an article that looks at the case of David Bryant highlights the dangers of uncorroborated victim testimony in historic sex offences.

On 20 July 2016 the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction of David Bryant, a retired decorated fire officer, two and a half years into an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence for buggery of a boy in the 1970s. While Mr Bryant’s remarkable tale has a happy ending, his case shines a disturbing light on the incompetence of our criminal justice system to sift fact from fantasy during shoot-outs between alleged victims and perpetrators following an uncorroborated complaint of historic sex abuse. In October 2012 David and Lynn Bryant were at home in Christchurch when a handwritten note w…

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