The Court of Appeal has dismissed Adam Marlowe’s appeal against his convictions for assault causing harm, robbery and aggravated burglary, ruling that the evidence was sufficient to leave the case with the jury and that its directions on DNA were adequate.
Marlowe was convicted by a jury in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in June 2018 and sentenced the following month to concurrent prison terms of three years for assault, eight years for robbery and 12 years for aggravated burglary. His appeal challenged the convictions, not the sentences.
The offences arose from an aggravated burglary at the home of Malachy Turley, who lived alone in a cottage at Kettle’s Lane, Drynam, County Dublin. Turley’s statement said three masked attackers entered his bedroom in the early hours of 29 July 2016, assaulted him while demanding to know where a safe was, and searched the house. He later found €50 and two small bags of coins missing. He received five stitches for a cut to his hand and had bruising. These details were evidence presented at trial; the appeal court was deciding whether the convictions should stand.
The prosecution’s only evidence linking Marlowe to the crimes was DNA from a small piece of blue latex found among the bedding during a Garda search later that day. Forensic scientist Dr Yvonne O’Dowd said a DNA profile matching Marlowe accounted for more than 93 per cent of the contribution on the fragment. At least two other contributors accounted for less than seven per cent. She could not say when the DNA was deposited, and said the fragment appeared to be a glove fingertip. She believed she had swabbed its inside, but accepted that a cut piece could be reversed.
Marlowe argued that the DNA could have been deposited at another time and that the fragment did not establish who wore the glove during the offences. The trial judge refused a defence application to withdraw the case from the jury. The jury was directed to consider innocent explanations for the fragment’s presence, the unidentified DNA, the uncertainty about when it was deposited and the limits of the forensic evidence.
The appeal court said the case was finely balanced. It held that the jury could infer from the fragment’s location in the bed, the evidence about the attackers pulling Turley from the bed, the absence of such gloves in his home, and the forensic evidence about staining and the major DNA contribution that the fragment came from a glove worn by a perpetrator. It also said the evidence could allow the jury to infer that Marlowe was the most recent, and possibly only, wearer. The court did not find that this inference was compulsory; it held that a properly directed jury could reach it beyond reasonable doubt.
The judges rejected all four grounds, including challenges to the refusal to withdraw the case, the assessment of the forensic evidence, the jury directions and the verdict as perverse. The appeal was dismissed, leaving the convictions in place.