Rupert Hallowes’ client, a university undergraduate, who had been 19 years of age at the time of the alleged offending, was unanimously acquitted by a jury at Portsmouth Crown Court of wounding with intent and a further allegation of assault. The Defendant and 3 others were alleged to have planned a revenge attack on a young man who had shoved Rupert’s client in a pub earlier. The Crown’s case was that the complainant was attacked without provocation on the street and then kicked and stamped on by all four defendants. Rupert’s client accepted that he had started the violence. Rupert’s client was the first defendant and the instigator of the alleged assault. Following a careful and searching cross-examination of the main witnesses for the Crown, numerous evidential deficiencies in their testimonies were exposed. Following a 12 day trial, the jury deliberated for two hours before returning not guilty verdicts on all counts in relation to all defendants.
Rupert was instructed by Emma Rendall of the Purkiss Partnership