A Perth civil service executive officer who was jailed for sexually assaulting two women has succeeded in having his convictions overturned.
Aadam Mohammed, 31, is set to walk free from prison after appeal judges cleared him of the charges on Wednesday.
He was convicted last year of raping and sexually assaulting a woman at a house in Perth in December 2009.
A jury also heard how Mohammed indecently assaulted another woman in a car in the Perthshire area some time between October 2009 and October 2010.
He was acquitted of raping a third woman.
Judge Lord Summers handed Mohammed, of Perth, a four-year jail term for the offences last year.
Earlier this month, defence solicitor advocate Ann Ogg told a virtual hearing of the Court of Criminal Appeal that the nature of the attacks for which Mohammed was convicted of were so different that the incidents didn’t corroborate each other.
The court heard that if Mohammed had been convicted of raping the third woman then it would have been open to jurors to find the accused guilty.
Ms Ogg said that a set of legal guidelines – known as the Moorov doctrine – dictated that since both incidents couldn’t be corroborated, her client shouldn’t have been convicted.
The doctrine was named after a case of a Glasgow shopkeeper convicted in 1930 of sexually assaulting 19 of his employees over a four-year period.
It means people accused of sexual offences in Scotland can be convicted if their alleged attacks are connected closely in “time, character and circumstance and have underlying unity” among other considerations.
On Wednesday, judges Lady Dorrian, Lord Glennie and Lord Turnbull upheld Ms Ogg’s case.
In a written judgment issued at the Court of Criminal Appeal, Lady Dorrian wrote: “In all the circumstances we are satisfied that once the jury discarded charge one it was not open to them to conclude that charges two and three created the circumstances necessary for the application of Moorov and they should have been told that if they rejected the evidence of the complainer on charge one they were required to acquit on the remaining charges.
“The appeal must therefore succeed.”
During proceedings earlier this month, prosecution lawyer Alex Prentice QC told the judges that Mr Mohammed’s conviction was safe.
He said there was sufficient evidence available which would entitle jurors to convict the father-of-one.
He added: “In my submission, there is sufficiency of when one looks overall at the evidence available in this case and I invite the court to refuse this appeal.”
However, the appeal judges disagreed with the Crown’s submissions and now Mr Mohammed has been cleared.
