Violent rapist Scott Thompson’s appeal against conviction fails

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by convicted rapist Scott Simeon Thompson. Photo / File

The Court of Appeal has rejected a violent rapist’s claim that he suffered a miscarriage of justice because Corrections staff deprived him of his medications during his jury trial.

Scott Simeon Thompson claimed without his medications for depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he was unable to concentrate, respond to questions and maintain a calm demeanour while giving evidence during his jury trial in October 2021 where he was found guilty of rape.

The conviction arose after the rape of a woman in 2019, hours after he beat her in a car. Following that conviction, Thompson was sentenced in April 2022 to preventive detention and ordered to serve a minimum of seven years behind bars before he was eligible for parole.

Thompson appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeal, which heard the case in May.

At that appeal, Thompson’s trial lawyer described his client’s evidence to the jury as “a train wreck”. Even the trial judge was sufficiently concerned by Thompson’s demeanour to ask – out of the jury’s earshot – if he had suffered a traumatic brain injury in the past and if the pace of the trial was too fast for him.

The court also heard from six nurses at Rimutaka Prison who are responsible for administering prisoner medications and recording what prisoners have taken. Their records showed only two mornings during his trial when Thompson didn’t receive one of the two drugs he was prescribed.

After the hearing, the court granted Thompson’s lawyer Nicolette Levy KC an opportunity to seek further evidence. She subsequently filed an affidavit from Dr James Foulds, an associate professor in psychological medicine at the University of Otago, about what effect, if any, the two missed doses of the drug, had on the way Thompson gave his evidence.

Foulds did not examine Thompson before providing his affidavit and said he couldn’t comment on whether Thompson’s testimony was adversely affected as a result of not receiving the two doses of the drug.

Levy acknowledged that while Foulds maintained it was unlikely Thompson had suffered withdrawal symptoms as a result of not receiving his medication, she said his affidavit supported the proposition that it contributed to her client’s feelings of overwhelming anxiety, because he believed the medication was critical to his mental wellbeing at trial.

In its decision, the court found that because Foulds hadn’t assessed Thompson, there was no evidence that the failure to receive the medication contributed in any meaningful way to his apparent failure to give evidence in the way he and his lawyer had hoped.

It concluded its decision by saying because the evidence didn’t show the two occasions Thompson failed to take the drugs had the effects his lawyer contended, it was unable to conclude that a miscarriage of justice had occurred.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.