The Supreme Court has quashed the conviction of an intellectually disabled man who had been accused of sexually touching a young girl.

Cameron Sousa-Saints, 27, was sentenced in March to serve two years behind bars for sexually touching a young person on an unknown date between July 2016 and August 2018.

However, Puisne Judge Alan Richards allowed an appeal against his conviction in a hearing yesterday.

While Mr Justice Richards said he would provide his full reasons for his decision in a written judgment, he told the court that justice had not been carried out in the case.

He told the court that he would usually refer the matter back to Magistrates’ Court for a retrial. However, because the Crown indicated that it did not wish to retry the matter, he said the case should be dismissed.

During a trial last year, Magistrates’ Court heard allegations that Mr Sousa-Saints had exposed himself to a girl under the age of 14 and urged her to have sexual contact with him.

Magistrate Auralee Cassidy initially dismissed the case against Mr Sousa-Saints, stating that while she believed the victim, the defendant’s mental impairment hindered his understanding of his actions.

That ruling was subsequently overturned by Mr Justice Richards, who found Ms Cassidy had misapplied the medical evidence of the case.

At a sentencing hearing in March, Ms Cassidy convicted Mr Sousa-Saints of the offence and handed down a two-year prison sentence, which was rapidly appealed.

Richard Horseman, counsel for Mr Sousa-Saints, argued in the appeal that the defendant was not able to properly instruct his trial lawyer because of his intellectual challenges and the lawyer had not properly considered a defence based on diminished responsibilities.

The appeal was not contested by the Crown, which indicated that it did not seek to retry the case given the time that has passed since the offence and the lack of any further complaints in the subsequent years.

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