The Court of Appeal has dismissed Gheorghe Goidan’s appeals against his convictions and 20-year prison sentence for rape and robbery in two separate hotel incidents in September 2017.
The court also refused an application to call three witnesses as fresh evidence. It held that the proposed evidence about an earlier Circuit Court prosecution was known, or could reasonably have been known, at the time of trial, and could not have materially affected the result. A nolle prosequi had been entered in that separate prosecution.
Goidan pleaded guilty to two robbery counts at the start of his 2019 Central Criminal Court trial. A jury convicted him on five rape counts involving two complainants. The incidents took place at a hotel in Portlaoise in the morning and a hotel in Galway that evening.
The complainants told the trial that Goidan threatened them with a knife, forced sexual acts and took money and belongings. Goidan told gardaí that the sexual activity was consensual and denied using a knife or taking property. The appeal court upheld the trial judge’s decision to let the second complainant give evidence by video link, finding a rational basis for her inability to attend and no procedural unfairness. It also ruled that the indictment had been properly tried jointly, with no evidential basis for alleged collusion or contamination between the complainants.
The court rejected the remaining conviction grounds it considered, including challenges to the refusal of an adjournment over disclosure and to the trial proceeding after senior counsel was temporarily discharged. Several other grounds were not pursued or were withdrawn.
At sentencing, the trial judge set headline terms of 17 years for each group of rape offences and reduced them for mitigation. The resulting rape sentences were to run consecutively between the two complainants, while sentences within each group ran concurrently. Seven-year robbery sentences also ran concurrently. The overall term was 20 years, backdated to 14 September 2017.
On appeal, Goidan argued that the total sentence was disproportionate and that the judge had not given enough weight to mitigation, including guilty pleas and the reduced number of witnesses called. The Court of Appeal said the trial judge had accounted for the pleas and assessed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. It found the 20-year term was not excessive or disproportionate and dismissed the sentence appeal.