The Court of Appeal has dismissed J.G.’s appeal against 20 rape convictions, concluding that the jury’s verdicts were safe and that the trial was satisfactory.
The appeal concerned a jury’s December 2020 verdicts at the Central Criminal Court in Kilkenny. The jury convicted J.G. on counts 1 to 14 and 17 to 22, and acquitted him on counts 15 and 16. He was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment on each conviction, to run concurrently from 10 December 2021, and declared a sex offender under the Sex Offenders Act 2001.
The complainant, identified in the judgment as “A”, said the abuse began when she was in primary school and continued in several locations, including the family home, caravans and a house. She testified that it occurred frequently and that J.G. told her not to tell anyone. The judgment also records her evidence that she first disclosed the abuse to her sister “B” in 1991 or 1992, and went to gardaí in January 2018.
J.G. denied raping her. His account to gardaí, as described in the judgment, was that they had an affair when she was 16½ or 17. She rejected that account. The defence did not call evidence at trial. The jury received warnings about corroboration and delay, and asked questions during its deliberations, including about the locations alleged in two counts.
On appeal, J.G. argued that the 20 convictions could not stand alongside the acquittals because the same complainant’s credibility was central to all counts. He also argued that the jury’s questions suggested speculation and that the long delay required heightened scrutiny. The prosecution submitted that the acquittals could be explained by the complainant’s admission that she had initially omitted from her garda statement that some alleged offences took place in a caravan after it had been moved to a green area.
The Court of Appeal found a “cogent potential explanation” for the different verdicts. It said there was no evidence that the jury had speculated; the questions instead showed attention to detail and serious consideration of their duties. The court held that the high threshold for establishing a perverse verdict had not been approached and dismissed the appeal. The appeal judgment did not alter the trial sentence.