The Supreme Court dismissed C.C.’s appeal against the decision to let his trial on historic child sexual abuse allegations proceed. The appeal concerned whether the delay and the absence of a deceased witness made it unjust to continue the trial. The Court upheld the Central Criminal Court’s ruling, which the Court of Appeal had also upheld.
The complainant, identified as A.U., complained in 2004 that her uncle had sexually abused her in 1971 or 1972, when she was 11. The more serious allegation was that he raped her in his bedroom at his house in County Clare, where she said she was staying. The Director of Public Prosecutions directed charges in 2006. The accused, identified in the judgment as Mr. C., denied the allegations in a statement to gardaí and denied that A.U. had stayed at the house.
The case was tried before a jury. At the close of the prosecution case, the defence made a P.O’C. application asking the trial judge to withdraw the case from the jury because the passage of time had made a fair trial impossible. The application focused in part on M.Cy., a potential witness who had died in 2008. A.U.’s account alleged that M.Cy. had brought her to the accused’s bedroom. The defence also relied on evidence that, before A.U. made her complaint, M.Cy. and two other women had described as “all lies” a separate abuse allegation made by the accused’s daughter.
In his judgment, O’Donnell J. said that exchange concerned the daughter’s allegation, not A.U.’s, and was a general remark rather than a detailed denial of A.U.’s specific account. He also considered the trial evidence that the accused’s son, C.C., said his father had not denied A.U.’s allegation when confronted and had agreed to stay away from children and seek help. The accused’s statement, the testimony of three witnesses that A.U. had stayed at the County Clare house, and the challenge to the son’s account were also part of the evidence available at trial.
O’Donnell J. concluded that the possible value of M.Cy.’s evidence was too speculative to show that the defence had lost a real possibility of an obviously useful line of defence. He considered the circumstances less compelling than an earlier case in which missing witnesses and destroyed hospital records had deprived the accused of a clear line of defence. He would not disturb the trial and appeal courts’ conclusion that it was just to proceed.
The Supreme Court judges differed in their assessment of the evidence. O’Donnell J. agreed with the judgments of Charleton and O’Malley JJ. and dismissed the appeal. This was a decision on the fairness of allowing the trial to proceed; the judgment did not determine the accused’s guilt or innocence.