The Court of Appeal has dismissed A.T.’s appeal against convictions for rape and sexual assault, finding no basis to overturn the jury’s verdicts or the trial judge’s handling of the deliberations.
A.T. was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury on 29 May 2023 of rape and sexual assault. He received an eight-year-and-three-month sentence for rape, with the final nine months suspended, and a concurrent three-year sentence for sexual assault, with 12 months’ post-release supervision.
The convictions arose from events alleged to have taken place at a house party in the early hours of 31 December 2018. The complainant was 17 and A.T. was 21 at the time. The prosecution case was that, after the complainant became intoxicated and fell asleep, A.T. sexually assaulted and raped her. The appeal judgment also refers to alleged digital penetration by another male, identified as S, which was the subject of separate proceedings. The complainant’s account and the other evidence were matters for the trial jury; the appeal court was considering legal challenges to the conviction, not retrying the case.
A.T. relied on three grounds in substance. The first concerned the prosecution’s re-examination of a witness identified as D, who had been called at the defence’s request. The Court of Appeal said the questions about D’s “no comment” answers to Gardaí went beyond proper re-examination and were irrelevant and inadmissible. It nevertheless rejected the ground, applying the miscarriage-of-justice provision in section 3 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993. The court said the evidence could not realistically have affected the jury’s decision.
The other grounds challenged the trial judge’s refusal to repeat directions on reasonable doubt after a jury question about medical evidence, and her initial refusal to tell jurors expressly that they could disagree. The appeal court found the original directions on proof had been clear and said the jury’s question did not show confusion about the burden or standard of proof.
The jury had received a majority-verdict direction and deliberated over several days, with breaks. The court found no basis to conclude that the judge or jury minder had pressured jurors. On the final morning, the judge said she would tell the jury it could disagree if deliberations continued, but the jury returned a majority verdict before that direction was given. The appeal was dismissed.