The Court of Appeal has dismissed P.C.’s appeal against two convictions for sexual exploitation of a child, rejecting challenges to the evidence and the conduct of the trial.
The court, in a judgment delivered by its President on 20 July 2015, said P.C. had been convicted on 25 September 2013 of two offences under section 3 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998, as amended. On 24 March 2014, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on each count, with the final three years of each sentence suspended on conditions. The sentences were to run from 24 September 2014.
The convictions arose from an incident on 9 September 2011 involving two 12-year-old schoolgirls, identified in the judgment only as L.G. and C.R. The girls’ account was not challenged at trial. They said a man approached them near their school, put €5 on their table and made sexual suggestions. One said he touched the other girl on the back; a café witness said he put his hand on one girl’s hand. The girls returned to school distressed and reported the incident.
The central factual issue at trial was whether P.C. was the man. Gardaí linked him to the incident through CCTV showing a green Jaguar leaving the area and information connecting a Jaguar registered to him with the investigation. The Court of Appeal held that evidence about the car’s registration was admissible.
P.C. also argued that his arrest and detention from prison for questioning were unlawful. The court held that section 42 of the Criminal Justice Act 1999 allowed a Garda member to make an arrest under a District Court warrant obtained on a superintendent’s sworn information; the superintendent did not have to execute it personally. It also accepted that moving P.C. to a station with recording facilities for interview was proper.
The court rejected challenges to the admission of the girls’ distressed demeanour, the caution and solicitor consultation, and the trial judge’s decisions about edited interview material. It said the law at the time did not require a solicitor to be present during questioning. The court noted that the law later developed, and that solicitor attendance during interviews had been permitted since May 2014.
It described the trial judge’s comment that acquitting a guilty person was as bad as convicting an innocent one as an unhelpful way to put the jury’s duty. In context, however, the court found it did not undermine an otherwise full and proper charge on the prosecution’s burden of proof. The court dismissed the appeal.