Sean Hogg’s conviction over rape of 13-year-old girl in Dalkeith Country Park overturned at Edinburgh court

Judges in Edinburgh have overturned a man's conviction over the rape of a 13-year-old girl due to insufficient evidence.

Lawyers for Sean Hogg told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the judge who presided over his trial did not follow correct legal procedures to establish guilt, adding that the 22-year-old suffered a “very significant miscarriage of justice”.

In April, Hogg was convicted of raping the teenager on various occasions in Midlothian’s Dalkeith Park, 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 Mr Hogg was over 25, he would have been sentenced to four or five years behind bars. Mr Hogg claimed he was wrongfully convicted of the attacks, 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.

In a previous hearing, both the advocate depute and the trial judge were identified as having failed to push for more detail or issue adequate directions to the jury.

Donald Findlay KC, representing Mr Hogg, told that hearing: “There has been a miscarriage of justice.”