“I have considered the papers in your case including your grounds of appeal against conviction, the letters you have sent the court, your various items of proposed fresh evidence, the prosecution’s Respondents Notice and the response from your trial barrister. Extension of time You seek a lengthy extension of time - 115 days when the time limit for appealing is 28 days. I have decided not to extend time for the following reasons. The only reasons you have provided for making such a late appeal are set out at Section 2 of your Form NG. These imply that your solicitor had suggested to you that he was lodging an appeal on your behalf, but he did not do so. You have provided no evidence to support this, and it is implausible. Furthermore, it is contradicted by the e-mail from your trial barrister confirming that you were advised at the end of your trial that there was no merit in you seeking to appeal your conviction. Extension of time It can be assumed that your legal representatives told you about the 28-day time limit when advising you negatively on the prospects of an appeal. Information about the ability to appeal to this court while unrepresented is publicly available. The fact that English is not your first language cannot in itself justify a delay of this kind. None of the fresh evidence on which you rely is such as to justify this delay. For these reasons I do not find your application to extend time persuasive. In any event there would be no merit in extending time because I have concluded that your grounds for appeal do not have merit for the reasons set out below. Applications to admit fresh evidence and the merits of the grounds. I do not consider your grounds of appeal are reasonably arguable and so refuse leave for the following reasons. I have used the numbering below from your grounds of appeal document. In your letter to the court received on22 October 2024 you have used slightly different numbering, but the content is essentially the same (albeit spread over more grounds). Ground 1: Late change of your legal team It is correct that your legal team changed relatively shortly before your trial due to the professional embarrassment of your previous legal team. According to the Respondent’s Notice, your new legal team took over on14 June 2023 . On28 June 2023 a pre-trial review took place. Your new representatives indicated that there would be a conference with you on the following day and that a Defence Statement would be served. The conference appears to have happened and I have seen a lengthy Defence Statement dated29 June 2023 which set out the facts of your defence in some detail. The trial started on3 July 2023 . There was no indication that your legal team did not consider that they were ready for trial. There were many opportunities for them to speak with you in conference and prepare at court, not least because although the jury was sworn on the first day of the trial, no evidence was called on that day. The complainant WK was not cross-examined until the third day of the trial. The court allowed time for conferences during the trial and your barrister never made any argument that he was not in a position to proceed at any particular point. He has not made any suggestion to this effect in his e-mail to this court. The Respondent’s Notice indicates that your barrister cross-examined WK at length including on topics which you have raised in your grounds such as the sending of money to Morocco and her account of her friendship with Jamila. Your legal team would have had ample opportunity to make inquiries of defence witnesses and collate other evidence such as the receipts for payments to Morocco if you had instructed them to do so at the time. Ground 2: Family Court proceedings The jury in your criminal trial was made aware that WK had obtained an interim non-molestation order from the Family Court but did not seek a final order. There was no finding by the Family Court that she had been untruthful. Ground 3: Fresh evidence regarding finances WK was cross-examined at trial about whether or not you had restricted her finances. She accepted that on two occasions money had been sent to her family in Morocco. You have provided fresh evidence showing two such payments. You have not explained why this evidence was not forthcoming at your trial. The payments date back to December 2018 and August 2019 and so the receipts would have been available to you at the time of your trial in 2023. For the reasons set out under Ground 1 you had sufficient time to discuss these issues with your legal representatives. I do not therefore consider that it is appropriate to admit this evidence on appeal. However, even if it was admitted it is not inconsistent with the evidence which the jury heard from WK. Ground 4: No intention to kill, but to scar, including fresh evidence regarding the same. You gave evidence at trial that you intended to scar and not kill WK. You were cross examined at length about this. However, the jury rejected your account and were sure that you intended to kill her. There was a clear basis for them to do so, in light of the CCTV footage showing eight blows with a knife to WK’s head and upper body and you perpetrating an attack which only stopped because others came to her aid. You now seek to rely on fresh evidence from Ahmed Adam about this issue. He is a close and long-standing friend of yours. You contend on the Form W that the reason Mr Adam’s evidence was not placed before the jury at the original trial was due to the change in your legal representatives. However, as I have explained above in relation to Ground 1 there was plenty of opportunity for you to give them instructions to this effect. Moreover, Mr Adam says you have known each other for over 15 years, you saw each other regularly at the mosque and when you were out driving, and you were “talking all ways [sic]”