The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by L.M. against convictions for rape and sexual assault, finding that the trial judge’s decisions on further questioning and missing evidence did not make the trial unfair.
The appeal followed a nine-day trial in which L.M. was convicted of rape and sexual assault and acquitted of false imprisonment. The alleged offences took place in the early hours of 21 August 2017, after the complainant, then 15, met L.M., then 37, in a town and went with him to his rented accommodation. She testified that he raped her after she fell asleep. L.M. accepted in Garda interviews that she had been at his apartment but denied sexual activity.
The appeal raised two issues. L.M. argued that the trial judge should have allowed the complainant to be recalled for further cross-examination about blood on the mattress and whether she was menstruating. He also argued that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury because delay in reporting had left relevant evidence unavailable.
The court said the defence itself first put to the complainant that the blood could have been caused by her period. She denied that suggestion during cross-examination, and the prosecution asked about it again in re-examination. The Court of Appeal considered the later answer a repetition of evidence already elicited by the defence. It found the defence had had an opportunity to question her further at that point and that the trial judge was entitled to refuse a second opportunity to do so. The court said the blood issue was not as central as the appellant had argued, given the evidence as a whole.
On the request to withdraw the case, the court considered the effects of the three-month delay in reporting, including the loss of a timely clinical examination, street CCTV and contemporaneous evidence about the bedroom and mattress. It noted that the trial judge had found some claims about what missing CCTV might have shown to be speculative, and that witnesses had given evidence about the premises after the alleged incident. The complainant’s accounts had been extensively tested in cross-examination, and the jury had been directed about the absence of corroboration.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the lost opportunities to obtain contemporaneous evidence did not create a real risk of an unfair trial. It rejected both grounds of appeal and dismissed the appeal. The convictions for rape and sexual assault, and the acquittal on false imprisonment, therefore remained undisturbed.