ABSTRACT
Whilst much of the discussion about the impact of sexual history evidence to date has tended to focus on the influence of the twin myths, impact on the complainant, and on justice outcomes, an added finding to emerge in the mock jury dataset was the complicating nature of the sexual history evidence. This chapter presents these findings, illustrating how sexual history evidence led to longer deliberations and reduced the likelihood of unanimous verdicts. It also presents juror deliberative narratives which exemplified uncertainty amongst jurors about how they may legitimately rely on evidence of the complainant’s previous sexual history with the defendant in their deliberations. Finally, the chapter reveals an indirect influence of sexual history evidence, showing that juror discussion of false allegations – though not always explicitly referencing the previous sexual history – arose almost exclusively in jury panels where sexual history evidence had been introduced. Taken together, therefore, findings discussed in this chapter highlight the potential complicating nature of sexual history evidence, and emphasise the need to consider this within policy and procedure.
