The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Folajimmy Awode against his conviction for sexual assault, concluding that none of his three grounds—raised for the first time on appeal—showed a real risk of fundamental injustice.
A jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court convicted Awode by a 10–2 majority on 15 June 2015. He received a two-year prison sentence, with the final six months suspended for three years. The appeal judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Edwards on 20 February 2017, records that the complainant was an inpatient at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, where Awode was working as a bank carer on the night of the alleged assault in November 2013. Awode denied the allegation and gave exculpatory accounts in two Garda interviews. The defence called no evidence at trial.
Awode challenged the trial judge’s directions to the jury on evidence of the complainant’s reports to others, the evidence of her neurosurgeon about the effects of prescribed medication, and the summary of the defence case. No requisition was made at trial on any of those matters. The appeal court said no cogent explanation had been offered for that omission; the suggestion of “oversight” was speculative and unsupported by evidence.
On the complaint evidence, the court said an instruction should ideally have told jurors that the reports could be considered when assessing whether the complainant’s account was consistent, but could not corroborate her account. It described the absence of such a tailored direction as an error of principle. However, the prosecution had introduced the evidence at the defence’s request, did not rely on it in its closing address, and the defence used it to argue that the complainant’s accounts contained discrepancies. In those circumstances, the court considered any risk of injustice remote and rejected that appeal ground.
The court also rejected the challenge to the neurosurgeon’s evidence. It said his evidence about the prescribed drugs and their effects was not disputed at trial, and no contradictory expert evidence was called. A special jury warning was neither required nor justified in the circumstances.
On the final ground, the court found the trial judge’s charge balanced and fair. Although the judge did not expressly set out each side’s case or specifically mention the alleged discrepancies, the court said she reviewed the evidence adequately and the jury would have understood the arguments. It dismissed all three grounds and left the conviction and sentence undisturbed.