The Court of Appeal has dismissed M.R.’s appeal against four convictions for indecent assault, finding that the trial was not unsatisfactory and that the verdict was not unsafe.
The convictions were recorded on 6 February 2013. They related to two counts concerning the summer of 1980, when the complainant was 12, and two concerning the summer of 1982, when she was 14. M.R. was sentenced later that month. The appeal judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Birmingham on 6 February 2017, addressed the convictions, not the sentence.
The appeal focused on the trial judge’s direction to the jury about corroboration. M.R. argued that the judge should have identified which parts of his Garda interview statements could support the complainant’s evidence. The concern was that the jury might treat admissions of sexual activity after the complainant was 15 as corroboration of allegations relating to when she was younger.
The prosecution maintained that some limited admissions in the interviews related to an earlier period. The defence argued that the answers could refer to a time after the complainant had turned 15. The court noted that two incidents described in detail by M.R.—one involving land reclamation and another at an old creamery—were said by him to have occurred after his father’s death, which the evidence placed in 1983. Those incidents were therefore outside the period covered by the indictment.
The appeal court said it would have been preferable for the trial judge to explain that interview answers could only count as corroboration if the jury was satisfied they related to a period when the complainant was under 15. But no one at trial had considered the omission significant, and the judge’s direction had been delivered against evidence and closing submissions that made the age distinction clear. The court could not conclude that the jury had been confused or misled.
The court also rejected three other appeal grounds. It held that a challenge to the direction on proof beyond reasonable doubt could not be raised after the defence had not sought a correction at trial. It found no substance in claims that the judge’s comments on delay suggested the appellant should call family witnesses, or that the jury had not been told consensual activity after the complainant turned 15 was not an offence.
The court dismissed the appeal against conviction.