The Court of Appeal has quashed a man’s convictions for 14 sexual offences after finding that evidence about his earlier abuse of the complainant’s two sisters should not have been admitted at trial.
The court allowed the appeal on that ground, concluding that the evidence’s prejudicial effect was overwhelming. It said there was a considerable risk the jury would convict because of the earlier offences alone, despite the trial judge’s directions on how to consider the evidence.
The convictions followed a unanimous jury verdict at the Central Criminal Court in July 2015. The appellant had been sentenced to 13 years in prison, with the final five years suspended on conditions, for one rape offence. The other 13 counts were taken into consideration. The Court of Appeal said it would proceed to hear and determine any application for a retrial; its judgment does not record a decision on whether a retrial would take place.
The offences were alleged to have occurred between September 1990 and July 1994, when the complainant was aged between four and eight. The complainant first reported the allegations to gardaí in July 2010. The appellant denied the allegations at trial. The court described the trial evidence from the complainant as strong and persuasive, while also noting that the allegation concerned events many years earlier.
The earlier evidence concerned the appellant’s guilty pleas to sexually assaulting the complainant’s two older sisters during the same period. The sisters’ accounts and the convictions were admitted after a pre-trial hearing. The trial judge considered similarities including the children’s ages, their relationship as siblings, the appellant’s care of them when their parents were away, the location and the alleged digital penetration. The appeal court also noted differences, including that the complainant was a boy and his sisters were girls, and that the complainant’s allegations were contested while the earlier offences had been admitted.
The appeal court said there was no evidence of collusion, but found that the complainant and his sisters could not readily be treated as wholly independent accusers in the circumstances. It held that, in this case, the risk of unfair prejudice outweighed the evidence’s probative value.
The court rejected two other grounds of appeal. It found that the complainant’s angry outbursts during cross-examination did not require the jury to be discharged, given the trial judge’s admonishment and directions. It also held that the judge’s directions on delay were adequate. The court said any issue about the corroboration warning became academic once it ruled the sisters’ evidence inadmissible.