The Court of Appeal has dismissed P.G.’s appeal against convictions for rape and sexual assault, ruling that the trial judge was entitled to refuse an application to stop the trial over concerns about information the complainant believed about the appellant.
P.G. was convicted on 28 July 2022 of rape under section 4 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990 and sexual assault under section 2 of that Act, as amended. The appeal was confined to one ground: that the trial judge should have directed an acquittal under the court’s inherent jurisdiction to protect trial fairness.
The case concerned allegations dating from 2016, when the complainant was eight or nine. The complainant told school staff in December 2018 that his mother’s then boyfriend, P.G., had told him to shower with him and had done something he described as “a bad word that began with the letter R.” He also alleged further contact after leaving the shower. These were allegations considered at the trial; the appeal judgment does not revisit the jury’s findings on the counts.
The appeal focused on the complainant’s belief that P.G. had been jailed for raping a girl. The judgment records that this information was incorrect: P.G.’s earlier conviction was for using information and communication technology to facilitate the sexual exploitation of a child, and the sentence was suspended. The details of that conviction were not put before the jury. The appeal court noted that the jury heard evidence of a separate 2013 sexual-assault complaint involving a cousin, and that the complainant’s interview with specialist interviewers was played in edited form.
The defence argued that the Gardaí’s failure to obtain a statement from the complainant’s father deprived P.G. of a possible line of inquiry into how the complainant acquired the mistaken belief. It also argued that raising the issue before the jury risked exposing P.G.’s prior conviction. The prosecution said the defence could have approached relevant witnesses and had not shown that material evidence was lost.
The Court of Appeal said stopping a trial requires exceptional circumstances. It found the suggested value of a statement from the father speculative and said there was no bar to the defence speaking to him or other witnesses. The court accepted that the defence had understandable reasons for not exploring the issue before the jury, but concluded that the absence of a statement did not prejudice the defence or make the trial unfair.
The court held that the trial judge had properly exercised her discretion in refusing the application. The sole ground failed, and the appeal against conviction was dismissed.