Sean Hogg walks free from court as rape conviction is overturned
There was an outcry when he received a community sentence originally
Last updated 11th Oct 2023
A man from Hamilton who was sentenced to unpaid work after being convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl in Midlothian when he was a teenager, has had his conviction quashed.
Sean Hogg, 22, was previously convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl 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 Hogg was over 25, he would have been sentenced to four or five years behind bars.
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 public interest to seek a new prosecution.”
The Crown Office had planned to challenge the “unduly lenient” sentence, if the appeal against conviction had not succeeded.