Man has conviction for raping 13-year-old girl quashed

A man who was sentenced to unpaid work after being convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl has had his conviction quashed.

Sean Hogg, 22, smirked as he left court after being told he would not be subject to a retrial following his acquittal.

He was convicted of raping the 13-year-old on various occasions in 2018, when he was aged 17.

He was spared jail by Judge Lord Lake at the High Court in Glasgow in April and was instead given 270 hours of unpaid work, although he said if Mr Hogg was over 25, he would have been sentenced to four or five years behind bars.

Mr Hogg claimed he was wrongfully convicted of the attacks in Dalkeith Park, Midlothian, and appealed.

Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh have now quashed his conviction after prosecutors admitted “mistakes were made” during his trial.

Judge Lady Dorrian said: “There was an insufficiency of evidence for conviction.

“The appeal must succeed.”

Solicitor General Ruth Charteris KC said: “It is not in the interests of justice to seek a new prosecution.”

The Crown Office had planned to challenge the “unduly lenient” sentence, if the appeal against conviction had not succeeded.

In a previous hearing, 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.

Donald Findlay KC, representing Mr Hogg, told that hearing: “There has been a miscarriage of justice.”