Chris Saltrese

Cases and Press

Chris Saltrese Solicitors offer a personalised client service that meets the individual needs of each case. Careful preparation, attention to detail and a comprehensive understanding of the parameters of each case provide the baseline for meeting the standard of representation clients have a right to expect.

Early and continuous consultation with counsel ensures client confidence at every step of the way to trial.

As a measure of our success, many cases result in pre-trial acquittals precluding the stress and risk of undergoing trial.

In other cases we have first represented on appeal.

We also prepare applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who have the power to refer cases, where warranted, back to the Court of Appeal.

Here is a sample of cases – to preserve the anonymity of clients, we have initialised cases that are not otherwise in the public domain.

Leading cases where Chris Saltrese Solicitors have represented clients include:

R v Williams-Rigby [2003] EWCA Crim 693

Former teacher in care home trawl case overturned on appeal

R v Chapman [2006] EWCA Crim 1656

Misdirection on delay and good character.

Conviction quashed. No re-trial.

Read transcript........

R v T [2007] Court of appeal - conviction quashed

An unmarried man in his 40s was accused by a relative’s son with a
history of drug and alcohol problems. Friends of the accuser joined in
to make marginal claims with rumour playing a potent rule in a close
knit rural community. Convicted at a second trial after the first ended
with a hung jury, the appellant instructed us to review his case having been told there were no grounds for appeal. We obtained the judge’s summing up and identified potentially serious shortcomings in directions on contamination and good character and the hearsay rules of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Leave to appeal was granted on renewed application by counsel to the full court and the conviction was overturned at the full hearing.

R v D [2007] Court of Appeal Criminal Division

Uncorroborated historic allegations of rape and other offences made against a man of exemplary character by a former neighbour from a broken home with a long history of psycho-social problems. Disclosure of medical and counselling records had been refused by the prosecution at trial. We were first instructed following conviction and the Court of Appeal ordered disclosure of records which led to the conviction being quashed.

A retrial was requested by the prosecution and a leading psychiatrist and psychologist undermined the reliability of the complainant. Sadly the client passed away prior to the onset of trial. Permission to publish the Court of Appeal judgment is still pending.

R (on application by John Douglas Pinnington) v the Chief Constable of Thames Valley [2008] Queen’s Bench Division (Admin)

Leading case on the criteria for enhanced criminal records information by the police. See comment and press below:

Press statement

The Register

Daily Mail

Sunday Telegraph

R v B [2007] Court of Appeal - Conviction quashed.

B was accused by an adult daughter after a property dispute. The twelve year old daughter of a former partner who lived opposite the main accuser also made allegations of abuse aged 3 despite having previously denied abuse during a previous unrelated child protection investigation. Leave to appeal was granted out of time and the conviction quashed by the full court.

R v W [2006] Crown Court – pre-trial acquittal

A 56-year-old woman made allegations out of the blue against a stepfather of good character in his 70s of offences 45 years ago. The complainant had a long and obscure history of psycho-social problems stretching back to circumstances before the accused joined the family and there were suggestions of a financial motive. We sought complete disclosure of records and the case, put back a number of times due to the complainant’s reticence, eventually collapsed pre-trial with a full acquittal.

R v T [2007] Crown Court – pre-trial acquittal

A father was accused by his adult daughter who was undergoing counselling for a marriage breakdown. We represented the defendant at the original case in 1999 where the Crown withdrew the charges. Some years later, the accuser’s daughter, the client’s granddaughter, was led to make an allegation though she had been mortified when her mother’s allegations had cut her off from her grandfather in the years gone by. With little to go on, the Crown attempted to introduce the daughter’s allegations as supportive evidence under the new rules in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. We prepared detailed legal submissions with counsel and obtained extensive disclosure undermining the prosecution. The Crown was forced to withdraw the case with the client receiving a full acquittal.

R v P [2008] Crown Court – pre-trial acquittal

A historic children’s home case involving allegations of abuse in the 1960s at an approved school. The defendant, a man of unblemished exemplary character, was finally acquitted pre-trial after extended delays by the police and prosecution following the submission of legal argument by the defence.

R v H [2008] Crown Court – pre-trial acquittal

Accusations by two unstable cousins with the same therapist against an uncle when he was in his teens. Many of the allegations were alleged to have occurred when the defendant was below the legal age for prosecution. Complex analysis and legal argument resulted in the withdrawal of the prosecution pre-trial.

R v K [2008] Crown Court – acquittal

Historic allegation of rape by ex-sister-in-law following the defendant’s divorce. The case went to trial and resulted in an acquittal by unanimous verdict.

R v CT [2009] Crown Court – judge-directed acquittal

Allegations of indecent assault were made against a former youth leader at a residential camp taking place nearly thirty years ago.

The male complainant, who was of high intelligence, had a history of family and psychological problems in his childhood and adult life.

The investigating police officer was severely reprimanded by the trial judge for failing to make sufficient inquiries.

The defendant, a family man of exemplary good character and public service, was acquitted by the judge following the hearing of the prosecution case on the grounds of no case to answer and was awarded costs.

R v B [2009] Crown Court – judge directed acquittal

Two sisters, with a history of childhood family tragedy and psychological problems, made sexual allegations against a former neighbour and family friend relating to 25 years ago.

The defendant was a professional family man of exemplary good character. Following a submission on delay and statutory contamination between the sisters’ accounts after the prosecution case, he was acquitted by direction of the judge and awarded costs.

R v H [2010] Crown Court – acquittal

A blind musician was accused by a former family friend of sexual allegations dating back 20 years. The complainant had a long history of serious drug addiction and a personality disorder. A psychiatric opinion was given at trial on the causes of the complainant’s personality disorder.

The defendant was unanimously acquitted of all charges by the jury.

R v A [2010] Crown Court – Judge directed acquittal

Two sisters in their twenties made allegations against a former partner of their mother. One sister had a history of severe psychological problems and both had a disturbed childhood unrelated to the defendant who was a children’s home manager of good character. The allegations were mutually contaminated ‘recovered memories’ though they had no recall of a genuine incident of abuse by an offender that was contemporaneously reported by the victims at the time.

On analysing the case it was seen that one complainant had kick-started her memories following a visit to a chiropractor with unorthodox methods and diagnosis. The defence commissioned a critical psychiatric opinion on this and following a further statement in response from the chiropractor the prosecution withdrew its evidence. The judge directed a full acquittal.

R v G [2010] Crown Court – acquittal

The complainant was an unhappy young woman with a disturbed childhood who had recently entered into a relationship with a former teenage acquaintance. When he threatened to end the relationship because of her erratic behaviour, the matter of her previously claiming to have had a sexual relationship with a neighbour when 15 arose. This led to a police report with her claiming this had ruined her life, while the current relationship was back up and running. The defendant, who had moved many years before, was an attractive and happy family man of good character whom the girl had known through the wife and helping with the young children. The girl had been prone to fantasy and had had a crush on the defendant. The defence case was that the complainant, prompted by her desire to keep the current partner, had revived the boastful teenage fantasy under his prompt and had heuristically adopted the abuse victim role. Defence evidence established that much of what was claimed could not have happened and that the current partner was an innocent dupe in believing the tale.

The jury acquitted.

R v R [2010] Crown Court – Judge directed acquittal and stay

The defendant was a former approved school house and scout master accused of sexual offences in the 1960s and 70s. Two complainants were at the school and another came forward to his probation officer following publicity about the case in the media. The defendant was known locally and nationally because of his conviction on a guilty plea for offences against two youths outside his professional remit in the 1980s when he was a social services director. The current complaints had not been made until decades years later. They were tendered in the knowledge of the previous conviction by men with a history of unreliability whose problems pre-dated any contact with the defendant. Having heard the prosecution evidence, the defence renewed an abuse of process argument that a fair trial was not possible which was granted by the judge. The inordinate delay, defects in the police investigation, publicity and a solicitor’s website calling for victims of the defendant to get in touch to claim large compensation awards were cited in support. See news report here

R v A [2010] Court of Appeal - conviction quashed

A referral by the CCRC on fresh medical evidence unopposed by the Crown.
Two complainants aged 11 and 12 had made allegations, including full intercourse, against a baby-sitter. Medical examinations for the Crown were said to support the evidence. The defence at trial in 1999 did not contest this stating that they accepted that abuse must have occurred, but that it was somebody else. On application to the CCRC the medical evidence was examined by gynaecologist Dr Mary Pillai who said that the signs and symptoms relied on by the Crown were no longer accepted as reliable indicators of sexual offences. The Court of Appeal accepted this as fresh evidence unavailable at trial and quashed the conviction.

R v E [2011] Court of Appeal - conviction quashed

A rape conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on unopposed
fresh expert evidence which negated the DNA evidence as supportive.
The Court of Appeal commended Chris Saltrese Solicitors for the assiduous work on the case. See judgment and Inside Time article.