1. The appellant was charged with five counts of raping a girl, X, contrary to section 118(1) of the Crimes Ordinance (Cap. 200). The prosecution’s case was that the appellant raped X on five occasions in a rental premise in the New Territories, when X’s mother, Y, was not home. Counts 1 to 4 identified that the offences were committed on various unknown dates from March to May 2014 respectively, while a specific date, 4 June 2014, was identified for count 5. The appellant contended that the whole case was fabricated, that Y was his “kept woman”, and that Y had abetted X to falsely accuse him of rape in order to extort money from him. 2. The appellant stood trial before a trial judge and a jury, during which he gave alibi evidence regarding count 5. The trial judge observed in her directions to the jury that this was a word-against-word case where the evidence basically consisted of the oral evidence of X against that of the appellant. The appellant was convicted on counts 1 to 4 by a majority verdict of five to two, and unanimously acquitted of count 5. He was later sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. 3. The appellant appealed against his convictions to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal rejected the appellant’s submissions that his acquittal on count 5 rendered his conviction on counts 1 to 4 unsafe and unsatisfactory. His appeal was therefore dismissed. 4. The appellant further appealed to this Court. At the conclusion of oral argument, the Court ordered that the appeal be dismissed. The reasons are summarised as follows. ISSUES 5. The first issue before this Court was whether the standard direction to the jury – that they should consider each count separately, and may accept part of a witness’ evidence and not the other parts of the same witness’s evidence (the “separate offences direction”) – should be qualified in cases of sexual offences where the only direct evidence of the commission of the offences came from the complainant. 6. The appellant contended not only that the trial judge should have indicated to the jury that any reasonable doubt they form concerning one aspect of the complainant's evidence must also be taken into account in assessing the overall credibility of the complainant and hence in relation to other counts (a “Markuleski direction”), but also that the trial judge should have given a more detailed direction to the jury that they may consider it very difficult to find the appellant guilty on counts 1 to 4 if they find him not guilty on count 5. 7. The Court held that a Markuleski direction was not always necessary or desirable as a counterweight to the separate offences direction. The direction should only be given when necessary, and only where a risk of unfairness to the accused had truly arisen. The overarching criterion was the conduct of a fair trial. 8. In the present case, the trial judge had already given a Markuleski direction during trial with particular reference to count 5, which at trial counsel did not request to expand in the detailed terms suggested before this Court. The Court therefore rejected the appellant’s submission that he was denied a fair trial. 9. The second issue before this Court concerned the proper approach of an appellate court towards inconsistent verdicts where, although not logically inconsistent, the verdicts were based on the uncorroborated evidence of the complainant. The Court reaffirmed the previous position in Hong Kong that in order to successfully appeal on the grounds of “factual inconsistency”, the appellant had to show that no reasonable jury which had applied their minds properly to the facts of the case could have returned the verdict in question. 10. On the facts of this case, the Court rejected the appellant’s submission because the absence of corroborated evidence could not of itself be decisive; there had been no undue delay in making the complaint; and that there had been an apparent difference in the quality of X’s evidence between counts 1 to 4 and count 5, as count 5 was contradicted by the alibi. The different verdicts were not inconsistent such as to necessitate intervention on appeal. DISPOSITION 11. The appeal was unanimously dismissed.