Early prison release actor wins assault appeal

Jason Hoganson, pictured after his release from HMP Durham in September, has won an appeal against a subsequent conviction

A former actor who was found guilty of assaulting a woman a day after leaving prison under a government early release scheme has had his convictions quashed.

Jason Hoganson, 54 and from Newcastle, had been convicted by magistrates of attacking Rachel Usher and breaching a restraining order a day after leaving HMP Durham, where he was serving an 18-month sentence for attacking her.

Hoganson, who had a leading role in the 1987 film Empire State, appealed on the basis that Ms Usher had since "sadly" died and the case against him relied on "hearsay".

Sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, Recorder Mark Guiliani allowed the appeal after hearing prosecutors had not done required assessments.

Because Ms Usher was "sadly deceased", the case against Hoganson was based on statements she had made to other people, known as "hearsay evidence", his barrister Nick Lane said.

For such material to be allowed, prosecutors should have conducted an assessment of the "reliability" and "credibility" of the evidence before it could be permitted to go before magistrates in Newcastle, Mr Lane said.

'Very clear directions'

That had not done been done and neither had it been carried out since, despite several adjournments at Newcastle Crown Court for the investigations to be conducted, the court heard.

Recorder Guiliani said the case should not have gone ahead at the magistrates' court and he could not understand why it had been allowed to do so.

At the crown court earlier, prosecutors had requested another adjournment to allow the investigations to be carried out, but that was rejected by the judge.

He said there had been "very clear directions" for the required assessments to be carried out but they still had not been done, and the prosecution's "open-ended" request gave no timeframe for when the investigations would be completed.

In response to the rejection of her adjournment request, prosecutor Antonia Adie said: "In those circumstances, the crown can't reasonably resist [Hoganson's] appeal."

Recorder Guiliani said the appeal was therefore "allowed".

Hoganson, who was absent from the appeal hearing, was among hundreds of prisoners released early by the government in a bid to cut jail overcrowding.