The Court of Criminal Appeal has refused Beroket Mekonnen leave to appeal his conviction for raping J.M. in Dublin in 2005, finding that an incomplete jury direction on drawing inferences did not make the verdict unsafe.
Mekonnen was convicted in February 2007 after a 13-day trial. The jury returned a majority verdict of 10 to one; a twelfth juror had been excused. He was sentenced to seven years in prison from 29 June 2006, with five years of post-release supervision.
The appeal challenged the admission of J.M.’s identification of Mekonnen at Busáras bus station, the trial judge’s directions to the jury on identification evidence and proof, and the safety of the verdict. The appeal court considered whether Gardaí should have arrested Mekonnen before the station identification and arranged a formal identification parade.
The court accepted that a formal parade is the preferred way to obtain visual identification evidence. It said the prosecution must objectively justify using an informal method when identification is central to a case. Here, Garda Rowe’s information was limited and second-hand, while the investigating officers considered Mekonnen a suspect but said they lacked sufficient grounds to arrest him. The court found that the decision to take J.M. to Busáras was an operational step in the investigation, made within the time available, and was not intended to deny Mekonnen rights attached to arrest.
The court also found the station identification fair. J.M. was not shown a photograph of Mekonnen or told that he intended to travel to Limerick. An independent Garda gave her instructions and remained out of speaking distance while she looked around the busy station. She first said she was not completely certain, then returned for a second look and identified him. The court said a formal parade offered after the arrest would have been of no benefit because any identification would likely have been influenced by the image from Busáras.
On the jury directions, the appeal court found that the trial judge’s initial charge and recharge together gave adequate warnings about the risks of visual identification and addressed the circumstances of the case, including J.M.’s admitted drunkenness. But it held that the direction on competing inferences was incomplete: the jury should have been told to adopt an inference favourable to the accused unless the prosecution excluded it beyond reasonable doubt.
Despite that error, the court concluded that the direction did not render the verdict unsafe, given the limited context in which the issue arose and the other evidence. It rejected the remaining challenge that the verdict was perverse and refused leave to appeal.