R v Rana Simha Yellambai & Ors

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NEUTRAL CITATION NUMBER: [2025] EWCA Crim 365 IN THE COURT OF APPEAL CRIMINAL DIVISION ON APPEAL FROM THE CROWN COURT AT LEICESTER HHJ BROWN T20227009 CASE NOS 202303444/B3, 202303500/B3, 202303501/B3, 202303509/B3, 202303685/B3 & 202303510/B3 Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL Friday, 7 March 2025 Before: LORD JUSTICE EDIS MR JUSTICE MARTIN SPENCER THE RECORDER OF COVENTRY HIS HONOUR JUDGE LOCKHART KC (Sitting as a Judge of the CACD) REX V RANA SIMHA YELLAMBAI VAHAR MANCHALA AJAY DOPPALAPUDI __________ Computer Aided Transcript of Epiq Europe Ltd, Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court) _________ MR M BASHIR appeared on behalf of Yellambai MR T SIDDLE appeared on behalf of Manchala MR R HEADLAM appears on behalf of Doppalapudi MR D MATTHEW appeared on behalf of the Crown _________ J U D G M E N T (Approved) MR JUSTICE MARTIN SPENCER: 1. In this matter the three applicants Rana Yellambai, born on 22 March 1993, now aged 31 and to whom we shall refer by his initials RY, Vahar Manchala, born on 26 April 1999, now aged 25 and to whom we shall refer as VM, and Ajay Doppalapudi, born on 27 July 1996, now aged 28 and to whom we shall refer as AD, renew their applications for leave to appeal against their convictions for kidnapping and against their sentences of 10 years' imprisonment, leave having been refused by the single judge. 2. The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this offence. Under those provisions, where an allegation has been made that a sexual offence has been committed against a person, no matter relating to that person shall, during that person's lifetime, be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify that person as the victim of that offence. This prohibition shall apply unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act. 3. The history of the proceedings against these applicants is relevant. The events with which the case is concerned took place in the early hours of 16 January 2022 and involved a complainant NT. The original indictment contained six counts against all three applicants: kidnapping (count 1), sexual assault (counts 2 and 3), assault by penetration (counts 4 and 6) and rape (count 5). 4. After trial in 2022 all three applicants were acquitted on count 5 (rape) following a successful submission that they had no case to answer. Additionally, RY and AD were acquitted of count 4 (assault by penetration). The jury were unable to agree on the remaining counts, counts 1, 2, 3 and 6 against all three applicants and count 4 against VM. There was a retrial in 2023. 5. Following the retrial, which started on 21 August 2023 and was heard by His Honour Judge Brown and a jury sitting in the Crown Court at Leicester, on 11 September 2023 all three applicants were convicted on count 1 (kidnapping). RY and AD were acquitted of counts 2 and 3 (sexual assault). However the jury were unable to agree in relation to all the remaining counts against VM and the count of assault by penetration, the original count~6, against all three. The jury were discharged on those remaining counts and not guilty verdicts were entered pursuant to section 17 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967. This history is relevant because it is part of the case for all three applicants that the verdicts were inconsistent. We return to this later. 6. The facts as originally alleged by the prosecution were as follows. 1. On 15 January 2022 the complainant went out for the evening with her friend in Leicester. She and her friends visited various bars and clubs and she had been drinking. She left to go home at approximately 4.00 am and intended to take a taxi. 2. The prosecution case was that the applicants were driving around Leicester City Centre looking for a woman with whom to engage in sexual activity. Their case was that they were looking for food. AD had made two calls to a sex worker before they left. RY was driving an Audi TT, with AD in the front passenger seat and VM in the back seat when they came across the complainant in Charles Street. AD got out and spoke to her and encouraged her, on the prosecution case, to get into the back seat of the car. 3. The complainant entered the car willingly thinking it was a taxi, on her case. She thought the applicants were going to take her home and gave them her postcode. Initially she laughed and joked with them. Instead of driving in the direction of her home however, they drove towards a petrol station in Narborough Road. By this point she had realised that they were not taking her home. She said she was now petrified and trapped in the back of the car. She did not want to attempt an escape that may fail at that point so she remained in the car. The car was then driven onto the southbound carriageway of the M1. She was kissed and sexually touched in the back of the car by the man next to her and the man in the front passenger seat. The car left the M1 at the Lutterworth junction and drove into a small, dark country lane. 4. The car stopped and the complainant was taken out of the vehicle. She was taken to the floor, her coat was removed and her trousers lowered. She said she felt something penetrate her mouth and her vagina. She remembers being slapped and called a bitch. 5. Somehow she managed to break away and with an almighty scream she ran barefoot across several fields towards the sound of the motorway. She was eventually rescued in an hysterical state on the hard shoulder of the M1 by the police. 6. The applicants drove back to Leicester leaving the complainant's clothes, bag and phone in Chapel Lane. During the journey back VM was driving. They eventually went home. Once home, RY made calls to sex workers. The following day RY and AD visited a brothel although they did not use any services and then they cleaned the car. Later that day they were all arrested. 7. In support of the case against the applicants, the prosecution relied upon the following evidence: 1. The evidence of the complainant. 2. The evidence of the complainant's sister and friend with whom she had been out that evening. 3. The evidence of one Tom Taylor, a dairy farmer who lived in Chapel Lane. As he was getting up for work he heard the car and "an absolutely horrible scream" but by the time he got outside no one was there. He found the complainant's jacket hanging on a tree. 4. The evidence of a forensic nurse regarding the examination of the complainant immediately after the incident. 5. The evidence of PC Capewell and her body-worn video footage. She was the first police officer on the scene on the M1 who was flagged down by the half-dressed and extremely distressed complainant. 6. Agreed section 9 witness statements of walkers in the area who found items of the complainant's property in Chapel Lane, including her jacket, shoes and phone. 7. The evidence of a DNA expert, Neil Wilson. He found mixed DNA profiles on the complainant's trousers, bra and breasts, including the DNA of VM. No DNA was found on any swabs taken from the complainant of RY or AD. 8. The evidence of a toxicologist, Ms Gagol who found that the complainant would have been approximately three times over the drink drive limit at the time of the incident. 9. The evidence of PC Aldridge who arrested AD and recorded his significant statement on arrest: "It's because these guys had a fight with this woman yesterday. These guys had a fight with a lady." 10. CCTV from Leicester Town Centre and the Shell garage. 11. The applicants' accounts in interview and in particular the lie told by VM, gainsaid by the evidence of the DNA expert, Neil Wilson, when he denied he had touched the complainant at all. 12. The evidence of DC Thandi regarding the analysis of the applicants' mobile phones. He found no evidence of any searches for food outlets but did find calls to sex workers that night on the phones of RY and AD. 13. The agreed facts. 8. The defence case was that the applicants had been enjoying their Saturday evening together earlier when out with other friends and then continuing back at their shared flat. They drank whiskey until 3.30 in the morning when they decided to go out in the car to obtain food. They said they tried to go to McDonald's but the queues were too long. They came across the complainant and picked her up as an act of kindness. She appeared vulnerable and needed help. She told AD that she thought the car was a taxi. They told her that they would take her home. She was laughing and joking with them in the car. VM's case was that the complainant initiated sexual activity with him in the back seat of the car. She was kissing him, took hold of his penis and removed her bra so that he could touch her breasts. He reciprocated. No-one assaulted her in Chapel Lane. They had no idea why she suddenly screamed and ran away into the darkness. They tried to look for her but she was gone, so they returned to Leicester and resumed their search for food. 9. At the retrial in September 2023 the issue for the jury on the count of kidnapping (count 1) was whether the applicants were party to the kidnap of the complainant by fraud/falsehood. The issue on counts 2 to 5 was whether the applicants had sexually assaulted the complainant as alleged, whether as principal or as a secondary party, previously referred to as an aider or abettor. The application for leave to appeal against conviction 10. For RY it is submitted that the conviction on count 1 for kidnapping is inconsistent with the jury being unable to be sure of RY's guilt in relation to the other counts. Thus, in order for the jury to have convicted the applicant of kidnapping, they must have ignored the directions of the learned judge in respect of the need to consider whether there was "a lawful excuse in the kidnapping". Had the jury properly followed the directions, it is submitted that the jury would not have convicted the applicant of count 1 given that they could not conclude that there was a sexual motive to the kidnapping. Finally, criticism is made of the way that the learned judge summed up the evidence, making little reference to the respective cases of each defendant and the Crown and failing to tie the evidence back to the primary cases for each party. 11. For VM it is submitted that the judge should have acceded to a submission that there was no case to answer on count 1, kidnapping. It is submitted that the evidence showed that the complainant got into the car in her own mistaken belief that the car was a taxi, not as a result of any fraud; that there was no evidence that the complainant was deprived of her liberty as she did not ask the applicants to stop the car or communicate her desire to leave the car and VM's role in the back of the car is no more than proof of mere presence. 12. It is further submitted on behalf of VM, in common with the submission on behalf of RY, that the guilty verdict on count 1 was inconsistent with the jury being unable to be sure in relation to the counts of unlawful sexual activity. If the jury could not be sure that the complainant was not consenting to the sexual activity that was said to be going on in the back of the car, they could not be sure that she was travelling in that car against her will. It is further submitted that if the jury could not be sure that RY, who was driving the car, had aided or abetted VM, who was in the back of the car with the complainant, then the only logical purpose for the journey was to get food from the motorway service station and not to detain the complainant against her will. 13. On behalf of AD, it is submitted that his conviction for kidnapping was inconsistent with the jury's verdicts on counts 2 and 3, namely the sexual assaults. It is simply asserted: "The Applicant submits that his conviction for 'Kidnap' (Count 1) cannot stand & does not make sense in the light of the 'Acquittals' by the Jury of the 4 counts that directly related to the alleged actions of the Applicant & his co-defendants and is inconsistent with these 'Acquittals' and therefore should not be allowed to stand." 14. In his grounds of appeal, Mr Headlam for AD, unlike Mr Bashir for RY and Mr Siddle for BM, made no attempt to analyse why the verdicts were inconsistent as opposed to simply asserting the same, but in his oral submissions he has effectively adopted the cases for his co-defendants and the oral submissions ably made by Mr Siddle and Mr Bashir on behalf of their clients. Discussion 15. Dealing first with Mr Siddle's submission in relation to the judge's half-time ruling, in our judgment it is not arguable that the learned judge was wrong to allow the case to go to the jury. Whether or not the complainant mistakenly got into the car thinking it was a taxi, it was her evidence that the applicants told her they were going to take her home when, on the prosecution case, that was not their intention as shown by what they subsequently did. Furthermore, and in any event, as the learned judge pointed out in his ruling, the offence of kidnap is a continuing offence and even if the jury were to conclude that they were not satisfied that any particular defendant was involved in a kidnap in Charles Street, the remaining defendants could have joined in the kidnap at any stage prior to her escape in Chapel Lane and would remain guilty of the offence. He ruled: "Kidnapping is a continuous offence and so providing the jury were satisfied so that they were sure that there was a kidnapping by at least one defendant at the roadside, they could convict any other defendant based on him joining in the kidnap thereafter, providing he is party to the continued detention of the complainant, against her will. I am satisfied that they could." 16. Furthermore, at that stage the role of each defendant both in relation to the allegation of kidnapping and in relation to the alleged sexual activity in the car, remained to be decided by the jury and the learned judge was indisputably correct to rule that issues which were not for him but for the jury remained to be determined in that there was sufficient evidence upon which the jury could conclude that they were sure of the applicant's guilt. 17. We wholly concur with the single judge who, in refusing leave to appeal on this point stated: "The submission of no case to answer was entirely justifiably rejected by the Judge. The case of kidnap (by deception) accorded precisely with the complainant’s evidence, and had other evidence in support. Indeed, the applicant himself in interview had accepted that she had asked to be taken home and was told she would be. What happened thereafter was not determinative; and reliance on the fact that the complainant did not initially protest or seek to leave the car not only makes a stereotypical assumption as to behaviour in such a situation but in truth was a cross-examination/Jury point." 18. So far as the argument in relation to inconsistent verdicts is concerned, first, we would point out that it was not the position of any of these applicants at trial that the jury could not and should not give separate consideration to each count on the indictment. The judge's legal directions, which we assume were agreed in advance with counsel, was that the jury could consider each count separately and that their verdicts could differ as between the separate counts and did not need to be the same for each defendant on any count. It was not suggested that the jury should be directed that if they were unsure in relation to counts 2 and 3 then they could not be sure in relation to count 1. 19. That also fed through into the route to verdict, which again we assume was agreed in advance with counsel. The first two questions posed for the jury focused solely on the charge of kidnapping and the answers, and the verdicts generated by those answers, did not depend in any way on the answers and verdicts generated by the subsequent questions which related to the counts of sexual activity. Thus, the route to verdict envisaged the jury deciding count 1 in relation to each of these applicants quite independently of its verdicts on the other counts and indeed before its consideration of those counts. If the applicants' arguments were correct the route to verdict would have been a seriously deficient document. 20. In our judgment, it was not. Again, we can do no better than repeat and endorse what was said by the single judge in refusing leave to appeal on this ground. In relation to RY he said: "As the authorities show, the bar is set high for such a ground succeeding on appeal. Further the judge gave a full separate treatment direction to the jury in his legal instructions, without any objection (then or now) that such a direction was wrong or inappropriate. There is in my opinion no illogicality or irrationality in the jury’s verdicts. The kidnap (an offence which can be a continuing offence) was said to have been achieved by deception, the complainant being taken by the three defendants against her will and contrary to her stated desire to be taken home. The jury clearly were made sure of that. But they may (for example) have had doubts as to whether what then happened in the back seat of the car was with the knowledge of those in the front seat of without reasonable belief by any defendant as to consent ... " 21. In relation to AD the single judge said: "There was ample evidence that the motivation was sexual. There was also clear evidence that she was not taken home. As to Counts 2-4, the Jury may for example have taken the view that the front passengers did not know or encourage what was going on in the back seat and/ or that all accused may have reasonably believed that she was consenting." These remarks apply equally to all three applicants. 22. In our judgment the answer to the inconsistency argument is also to be found in the judge's sentencing remarks. In sentencing the applicants he asked himself the question: "What was the motive for the kidnapping?" And he answered that question by effectively stating that the motive was sexual. 23. In our judgment, that approach to sentence by the judge was in no way inconsistent with the verdicts that the jury had reached or were directed to reach in respect of the counts of sexual assault and rape. Thus, it was open to the judge to find, as he did, that there was a sexual intention for the defendants - in fact, on the judge's finding, to rape the complainant, as illustrated in particular by their behaviour in Chapel Lane - but before they could carry out that intention she escaped. Hence, the offence of rape was never completed. But if that was their intention and motivation, then that would be consistent with the complainant having been kidnapped for that purpose, making it open to the jury to find, as they did, that the applicants were each guilty of kidnapping but not guilty of rape or the other sexual offences. 24. Finally, there is RY's criticism of the learned judge's summing-up. In our judgment the summing-up was fair and even-handed. We have no doubt that in his final submissions on behalf of RY his counsel, Mr Bashir, would have submitted to the jury that his client's primary case was consistent with the evidence which he was inviting the jury to accept. It was not necessary for the judge to repeat those submissions. At page 4B of the transcript he fairly put RY's case as follows: "[RY] is the driver. His case is he had no part in any of the alleged crimes this night. As the driver of the car, his car, he was over the legal limit to drive because of alcohol, so he had to concentrate very hard on the road because of the state he was in. So he had no time and played no part whether it be touching or unlawful taking-away, and he is not part of any kind of joint activity that night." 25. His recitation of the evidence was otherwise fair and accurate. We agree with the single judge who said: "I reject the complaint that the summing up was unbalanced or confusing." 26. In the result, the applications for leave to appeal against conviction of each of these applicants are refused. The applications for leave to appeal against sentence 27. We have taken the view that each of these applicants should have leave to appeal against sentence. It is not appropriate at this stage for this court to give reasons for that but we consider that the issues involved in relation to sentence, and in particular the basis for sentencing, were sufficiently difficult and there are sufficient arguments that the case for the applicants merits the consideration of the full court. We further consider that the full court may be minded to give some further guidance on sentencing approach in cases of this kind of kidnap, given the age of some of the authorities. 28. We therefore grant all three applicants leave to appeal against their sentence. 29. LORD JUSTICE EDIS: Mr Siddle, we understand you appear privately funded? 30. MR SIDDLE: For today, but I would invite the court to grant legal aid for the full sentence appeal. 31. LORD JUSTICE EDIS: Yes. I do not know what the usual approach is where this situation arises. Certainly in the case of the two who have been appearing pro bono today there is no doubt that there will be a representation order, but I do not know whether representation orders are sometimes means-tested and if so whether the availability of funds hitherto may be relevant. I simply do not know the answer to that. 32. MR SIDDLE: I have to confess, I have not had this situation before myself. 33. LORD JUSTICE EDIS: I think to deal with the matter without any risk it may be better if you make your application to the Registrar. 34. MR SIDDLE: Very well. 35. LORD JUSTICE EDIS: On the merits you should have a representation order. It is only if there is some aspect of the means of your client which suggests otherwise that that might not follow. 36. It would probably be helpful to the full court to have a single set of submissions on the common issues as far as sentencing is concerned. We more or less have a single set of submissions on those issues today but it would probably be helpful to have one skeleton argument to which all three counsel have contributed which can deal with the authorities which we have seen already and any further authorities that you may decide need to be marshalled and then for prosecution to respond on the question of sentence as well, so the court has the fullest possible assistance. 37. MR SIDDLE: Yes, I am sure that can be done. 38. LORD JUSTICE EDIS: Thank you all very much. Epiq Europe Ltd hereby certify that the above is an accurate and complete record of the proceedings or part thereof. Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE Tel No: 020 7404 1400 Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk