The Court of Criminal Appeal refused A.D. leave to appeal his convictions for rape and assault causing harm, finding no basis to overturn the trial judge’s rulings or the jury’s verdicts.
A.D. was convicted in the Central Criminal Court on 29 January 2007 of rape and assault causing harm. The jury found him not guilty of sexual assault. A charge of threatening to kill had been withdrawn from the jury at the end of the prosecution case.
The charges arose from alleged events on 19 March 2006 involving A.K., a Russian national. At trial, A.K. said A.D. forced her to have sex and assaulted her. The prosecution also relied on testimony from her boyfriend, who said he saw A.D. trying to choke her, medical evidence describing bruising and hair loss, and DNA evidence matching A.D.’s profile to samples from vaginal swabs. A.D. denied assaulting or raping her and said they had consensual sex.
At the close of the prosecution case, the trial judge refused the defence application to withdraw the charges from the jury. The appeal court held that the judge had applied the correct test: whether a properly directed jury could convict on a possible view of the evidence. It said the trial evidence, despite inconsistencies, was sufficient to go to the jury.
A.D. also argued that the jury’s verdicts were perverse because it convicted him on some charges but not sexual assault. The appeal court said the jury had been directed to consider each count separately and could have a reasonable doubt on the sexual assault charge. It described the verdicts as consistent with a careful assessment of the evidence.
The appeal court also considered the first Garda interview. The trial judge had excluded what happened after Gardaí were told A.D.’s solicitor was at the station and that A.D. wanted to see the solicitor. The judge also excluded the signed interview notes, but allowed an edited video of the earlier part of the interview to be shown to the jury. The appeal court said the right of access to a solicitor had been breached, but no causal link was established between that breach and the portion of the interview admitted into evidence. It therefore rejected the challenge to the interview evidence.
The court refused leave to appeal. Its decision addressed the application for leave; it did not set aside either conviction.