A Longman warning is not required merely because a complainant's evidence contains inconsistencies between different accounts, where there is an immediate complaint, no delay in prosecution, and the inconsistencies are of a kind within the jury's ordinary competence to assess. Where the defence case is that the charged sexual acts did not occur at all (rather than that they were consensual), consent and mens rea are not live issues requiring separate direction. Defence counsel's failure to seek a Longman direction or take exception to the charge is a proper basis from which to infer the direction was not required.
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