The Court of Criminal Appeal rejected Anthony Hardiman’s application for leave to appeal his convictions for offences against two women who were young girls at the time. The court found no legal error in the trial judge’s rulings and no basis to conclude that the trial was unfair or the convictions unsafe.
The judgment, delivered by Macken J on 19 October 2011, dealt only with leave to appeal conviction. Although the application also referred to sentence, the court said that issue was outside the scope of this judgment.
Hardiman had been convicted at Galway Circuit Criminal Court on 11 December 2009 of 51 counts: one count of buggery and 50 counts of indecent assault. The offences were alleged to have occurred between 1968 and 1980. He was sentenced on 24 February 2010. The appeal court’s account records five years’ imprisonment on count one, with sentences on other counts ordered to run concurrently or consecutively, some suspended on terms.
The applicant argued that the indictment should have been divided into separate trials for the two complainants, and that the jury should have been discharged when the application to sever was renewed during trial. He said there was a risk the jury would use one complainant’s evidence to support the other’s. The appeal court held that the trial judge had exercised his discretion on the correct legal basis. It noted that no specific evidence had been identified to show the defence was embarrassed or prejudiced as the trial unfolded.
The applicant also challenged evidence from MM, a friend of one complainant, GC. MM described entering GC’s home when she was about 14 or 15, seeing GC distressed and Hardiman close to her. The defence objected to parts of the proposed evidence and sought discharge of the jury after MM testified. The trial judge refused. The appeal court found the testimony did not include the excluded statement about MM’s instinct, and said the judge had been entitled to refuse to discharge the jury.
The court also rejected the challenge to the judge’s directions on corroboration. The trial judge had told the jury there was no corroborative evidence except for a possible instance involving MM, and warned them to assess it carefully. The appeal court said the evidence was capable of corroborating GC’s account if the jury found it credible and independent; it found the judge had not improperly characterised it as corroboration.
Other grounds concerned whether the defence case had been adequately put to the jury and whether the judge gave undue weight to Hardiman’s decision not to testify. The court found the charge, read as a whole, adequately covered the defence and that the judge’s directions made clear there was no burden on the accused to explain the allegations. It also noted that the defence chose not to pursue a requested recharge.
The court rejected the application for leave to appeal. It made no determination in this judgment on an appeal against sentence.