Court of Appeal allows Mayo defilement conviction appeal and orders retrial

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal has allowed a man’s appeal against his conviction for defiling a child under 17 and directed a retrial. The conviction arose from an incident in Co Mayo in July 2020; the man was acquitted of a separate sexual assault charge.

The court found that the trial judge’s comment on the man’s defence about the complainant’s age risked foreclosing proper consideration of that defence. It held that the appeal succeeded on this ground, so the conviction appeal was allowed and a retrial ordered. The man had been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended, but had not served any part of the sentence.