A man who avoided a prison sentence for rape is to have his conviction reviewed after prosecutors admitted “mistakes were made” during his trial.
Sean Hogg, 22, was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl on various occasions in Dalkeith Park, Midlothian, in 2018, when he was aged 17.
Following his conviction, Hogg, from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, was spared jail by Judge Lord Lake at the High Court in Glasgow.
He was instead given a community payback order with 270 hours of unpaid work due to new guidelines for sentences for under-25s.
However, the judge said he would have passed a four- to five-year prison sentence had Hogg been aged over 25.
The sentence sparked outrage, with shadow Scottish justice secretary Jamie Greene describing it as a “total insult to the victim in this case”.
Hogg later claimed he was wrongfully convicted of the attacks and appealed, while the Crown Office planned to challenge his “unduly lenient” sentence.
Scotland’s most senior judges will now review whether the conviction should be quashed – due to legal errors.
Both the advocate depute and the trial judge were identified as having failed to push for more detail or issue adequate directions to the jury, the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh was told.
“The Crown’s position is clear, mistakes were made at the trial,” said solicitor general Ruth Charteris KC.
Ms Charteris said there were “three main issues: the decision to direct the jury on distress, an error made in directions, and also the verdict returned by the jury”.
She said the trial judge had referred to the girl’s distress in one of the incidents where there was no evidence of penetration by Hogg, something Ms Charteris described as “a factual error on behalf of the judge”.
However, she argued that the jury still heard enough evidence to convict Hogg of raping the girl on one occasion.
At the appeal hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, Judge Lord Matthews described some of the evidence as “worthless” and said: “There was a strong public interest in the trial being fair.”
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Donald Findlay KC, representing Hogg, said there had been a “miscarriage of justice”.
“What happened was wrong and ended up with a verdict being allowed to stand, which should not have been allowed to stand,” he said.
Aamer Anwar, representing the girl, who is now 18, said in a statement that his client was “devastated” and had “told the truth”.
He said: “My client in April of this year was left devastated.
“As far as she is concerned, she came forward. She told the truth. She spoke up. She believes the police and the jury did its duty.
“There is much more she wishes to say, but it would be inappropriate to comment further until the appeal court issues its judgment.”
