The Court of Appeal has upheld P.K.’s convictions on 26 sexual offences against his younger brother, rejecting challenges to evidence about earlier disclosures of the abuse and to the trial judge’s directions to the jury.
P.K. was convicted unanimously in the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick on 29 November 2024. The convictions comprised 12 sample counts of sexual assault and 14 counts of section 4 rape. The offences were found to have occurred in the family home during periods spanning 1995 to 1999, when the complainant was aged between nine and 13.
The trial judge imposed an aggregate sentence of seven-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. P.K. appealed his convictions only; there was no sentence appeal.
The appeal focused on evidence from two witnesses, identified as M O’D and MD, about disclosures made to them by the complainant years after the offending. MD recalled the complainant telling her, after a night out some months after July 2003, that his brother had abused him as a child. M O’D described a later disclosure following the breakdown of her marriage in December 2006.
P.K. argued that these accounts were insufficiently consistent with the complainant’s trial evidence to qualify as recent complaint evidence.
In its judgment of 23 July 2026, the Court of Appeal disagreed. It held that the trial judge had correctly applied the law and was entitled to find that, given the prolonged abuse and family circumstances, the disclosures were made at the first reasonable opportunity. The court also found both accounts consistent with the complainant’s evidence.
The court rejected a further argument that the jury should have received a corroboration warning. It found that alleged inconsistencies in earlier disclosures and mental-health records were not material and fell well short of warranting such a warning.
The conviction appeal was dismissed. P.K.’s 26 convictions therefore remain in place, as does the aggregate seven-and-a-half-year sentence, which was not under appeal.