Background
The appellant owned a restaurant in Nahariya where he employed workers, including underage female employees. He was charged in a single indictment containing two counts. The first count (chronologically the second incident) concerned complainant A, a 14-year-old girl whose father was a friend of the appellant. On November 24, 2023 — her birthday — she passed by the restaurant and the appellant invited her inside to celebrate. He hugged her, slipped his hand beneath her shirt and above her bra, and fondled her breast. When he realized the incident had been recorded on the restaurant’s security system, he dismantled the DVR, replaced it with another device, and discarded the original in a rubbish bin outside. The charges on this count were indecent act against a minor under 16 (Penal Law, ss. 348(b), 345(b)(1), and 345(a)(1)) and obstruction of justice (s. 244).
The second count (chronologically the first incident) concerned complainant B, who was 16 years old and employed at the restaurant. On November 28, 2021, during a shift, the appellant asked B to accompany him to a storage room, where he directed repeated sexual remarks at her, grabbed her belt loop, pressed her against him, placed his hands on her buttocks, and attempted to kiss her despite her verbal and physical resistance. He then led her into a room within the storage area containing a massage bed, performed a shoulder massage, and continued to pull her toward him, grab her buttocks, and try to kiss her over her objections. After the incident he resumed making sexualized comments about her. Those acts gave rise to charges of forcible indecent act (Penal Law, s. 348(c1)) and sexual harassment in an employment relationship involving abuse of authority (Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law 1998, ss. 3(a)(4), 3(a)(6)(c), and 5(a)).
The Haifa District Court (Judge Bengio) convicted the appellant on all counts on May 11, 2025, relying principally on the direct, consistent, and corroborated testimony of both complainants and rejecting the appellant’s account as riddled with contradictions and unsupported by evidence. On November 17, 2025, the District Court sentenced him to 30 months’ actual imprisonment (less pre-trial detention), various suspended terms, and NIS 15,000 compensation to each complainant. The appellant appealed both the conviction and the sentence; execution of the sentence was stayed pending appeal by order of Supreme Court President Amit on December 31, 2025.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Ruth Ronen, writing for a unanimous panel, dismissed the appeal in its entirety. On the question of joinder, the Court held that consolidating both counts into a single indictment was lawful under s. 86 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which permits joinder when charges rest on “similar facts.” Identity of the accused, the similar nature of the offences (sexual misconduct directed at minor or near-minor female workers), and the common setting (the appellant’s own restaurant) satisfied that standard. The Court rejected the appellant’s contention that joinder caused unlawful “spillage” of evidence between the counts, noting that the District Court had expressly adjudicated each count on its own separate evidentiary foundation and had not used the testimony of one complainant to corroborate the other. In a parenthetical observation, the Court noted that, given the similarities between the incidents, the similar-acts (propensity) exception might have permitted cross-use — but since the trial court had not invoked that doctrine, no ruling on it was required.
On the merits of the conviction, the Court applied the established rule that appellate intervention in findings of fact and credibility is reserved for exceptional cases, a rule that carries particular force where the testimony of sexual-offence complainants is concerned. With respect to complainant A, the Court found that peripheral inconsistencies in her account (such as which hand or which side was involved in the touching) did not undermine the coherent core of her narrative, which remained consistent from her police statement — filed approximately two hours after the incident — through cross-examination and trial testimony a year later. The Court rejected the argument that the public setting of the offence made it implausible, reiterating that sexual offences are frequently committed in circumstances that defy ordinary logic. It also held that the destruction of the DVR was properly treated as obstruction of justice, independent of any alleged “spillage,” since the appellant himself admitted to dismantling and discarding the device after recognising that complainant A was upset by what had occurred. With respect to complainant B, the Court analysed the WhatsApp message she sent a friend approximately forty minutes after the incident — which the appellant characterised as a “golden exculpatory piece of evidence” showing she treated the whole episode as a joke — and concluded that the message, read carefully, showed the opposite: it described a progression from an initial uncomfortable remark to a sudden physical assault (“and then he grabbed me by the trousers, took me into some room, almost kissed me”), consistent with her testimony. The Court further held that B’s decision to ride home on the appellant’s motorcycle after the shift — which the trial court found she did because she was left with no other option — did not contradict her emotional distress, reiterating that victims of sexual offences cannot be expected to conform to a single pattern of post-assault behaviour.
On sentence, the Court upheld the 30-month term. It observed that the cumulative statutory minimum imprisonment for the two sets of offences, calculated under s. 355 of the Penal Law, amounted to 51 months — meaning the sentence actually imposed was already significantly below the floor the legislature had set. The Court found no exceptional circumstances warranting further reduction, particularly given that the appellant had not accepted responsibility for his actions and had not undergone any rehabilitative process.
Key Takeaways
- Joinder of sexual-offence counts under s. 86 of the Criminal Procedure Law is satisfied by the “similar facts” alternative when the same accused committed analogous offences against different victims at the same location, even if the incidents were separated by nearly two years and involved different ages and circumstances.
- Peripheral inconsistencies in a complainant’s testimony — especially regarding precise physical details recounted under pressure in cross-examination long after the event — do not destroy credibility so long as the core narrative remains coherent and consistent throughout the proceedings.
- Post-incident conduct by a sexual-offence victim (including riding with the perpetrator or initially describing events in casual tones to a friend) does not automatically undermine credibility; courts must assess the full context rather than expecting a uniform victim response.
- Contemporaneous communications (such as WhatsApp messages) must be read as a whole; a victim’s use of irony or levity in describing the lead-up to an assault does not negate her separate, clear description of the assault itself within the same message.
- Where a convicted person’s sentence already falls below the cumulative statutory minimum, the absence of genuine mitigating factors such as expressed remorse or rehabilitation will defeat a claim for further reduction on appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision offers a clear doctrinal synthesis on the joinder of sexual-offence counts, confirming that prosecutors may consolidate charges arising from separate incidents against different victims when a common accused, common offence-type, and common setting are present — without needing to invoke the more contested “similar-acts” propensity doctrine, and without the joinder automatically tainting the proceedings. The ruling will guide trial courts and prosecutors in structuring indictments in cases involving serial workplace or situational misconduct.
The Court’s treatment of victim credibility is also significant. By addressing the “evolving narrative” theory, the significance of post-incident WhatsApp communications, and the “implausibility” argument rooted in public or workplace settings, the judgment reinforces and consolidates a body of jurisprudence protective of complainant testimony in sexual-offence cases. Defence practitioners and trial courts alike will need to engage seriously with this framework when assessing how to weight minor inconsistencies, victim post-incident behaviour, and informal contemporaneous communications in the context of workplace sexual misconduct prosecuted against minors.