A doctor who was found guilty of a rape after the crime was corroborated by a claim of sexual assault against a different woman has lost his appeal against the conviction.
Lawyers for Glasgow doctor Khalid Jamal had claimed the sexual assault - which did not involve penetration - could not be used to prove the rape claim.
But at the Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary, a panel of judges headed by Lord Justice General Lord Carloway rejected the argument in a ruling which the court said would have a bearing on all rape cases.
Jamal, 46, was convicted and jailed for six years in June last year for the crimes, which took place in Great Western Road, Glasgow and in cabin in Balloch, Dunbartonshire. He was convicted of assaulting CQ, a 27 year old woman, in 2013, and of raping a 19 year old, KL, in 2016.
However the only evidence came from the two women themselves, meaning the case relied on Moorov's doctrine - which states complaints can provide each other with mutual corroboration if they demonstrate a consistent pattern of conduct.
Jamal's appeal claimed that the jury had deleted elements of the charges in the CQ case which described his "intent to rape" his victim, and therefore clearly did not consider that she had been raped. As a result the character of the offences were different as only the attack on KL had involved penetration, and it was argued they could not be used to corroborate each other.
However Lord Carloway said this was incorrect. "There is no principle whereby what might be perceived as less serious criminal conduct, such as a non-penetrative offence, cannot provide corroboration of .. an apparently more serious crime involving penetration," he said in the written opinion of the court.
Both victims had met Jamal on an internet dating website and were much younger than him. He had represented himself as younger than his true age to both of them and invited them both into his bedroom on a pretext, before pushing them onto the bed and sexually assaulting them.
"The jury were entitled to identify similarities in time, place and circumstances in the behaviour described by both CQ and KL, such as to demonstrate a course of conduct systematically pursued by the appellant," the judges said, in refusing the appeal.
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