The Court of Appeal has dismissed NW’s appeal against convictions for child cruelty, sexual exploitation and sexual assault, finding that the trial judge did not err in allowing the contested charges to go to the jury.
NW was convicted in June 2022 of child cruelty, sexual exploitation and sexual assault involving her young son. The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on the sexual exploitation and sexual assault counts and a majority guilty verdict on child cruelty. The trial judge had directed a not guilty verdict on a second sexual exploitation count.
The appeal pursued two issues. NW argued that the child cruelty charge did not specify the acts or omissions said to amount to wilful neglect. The Court of Appeal held that the indictment gave reasonable information about the nature of the allegation. It said the prosecution’s case relied on circumstantial evidence about the child’s behaviour and presentation, and that the evidence it intended to rely on had been served on the defence. The court therefore rejected the challenge to the charge’s particulars.
NW also argued that the remaining sexual offence counts should have been withdrawn from the jury because of weaknesses in the child’s evidence, the passage of time, and prejudice from allegations in his recorded interviews concerning his deceased father and other people. The court said the jury was responsible for assessing the evidence and that the trial judge had properly directed jurors not to use allegations against others as evidence against NW.
The child was between three and four and three-quarter years old during the alleged sexual offences. He was interviewed by specialist garda interviewers in 2017 and cross-examined at trial. The appeal court accepted there were frailties in the evidence, including the child’s difficulty remembering events, but found that further cross-examination had been possible. It said the defence’s decision to end cross-examination did not establish that a fair trial was impossible. The court also distinguished the circumstances from a previous case involving a child witness’s memory.
The appeal court dismissed the conviction appeal. It did not decide the prosecution’s separate application alleging that the sentences were unduly lenient; that application is to be addressed in a later judgment. The trial judge had imposed suspended prison sentences of three years for the sexual offences and 12 months for child cruelty.