The Court of Appeal dismissed Larry McCarthy’s appeal against his conviction for assault causing harm and violent disorder arising from an incident at Cornmarket Villas in Limerick on 25 November 2014. It did not decide his separate appeal against sentence, saying that would be determined in due course.
McCarthy had been convicted after a trial at the Special Criminal Court on 3 July 2017. He received concurrent sentences of three years for assault and six years for violent disorder, to date from 30 July 2015. The appeal judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mahon on 31 May 2018, addressed the conviction appeal and left the sentence appeal pending.
The appeal focused on two written statements David Foran gave to gardaí on 27 November and 15 December 2014. At trial, Foran’s account was broadly consistent with the statements but differed on identifying McCarthy as the person who threatened and stabbed him. The trial court admitted the statements under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, after finding they were voluntary and reliable and that their admission was necessary and would not be unfair to the accused.
McCarthy argued that the statements were unreliable and should have been excluded in the interests of justice. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s decision. It noted that the first statement’s reading back to Foran was video recorded, that both statements contained declarations of truth, and that parts of the account were supported by other evidence, including medical evidence of Foran’s injury. The appeal court said it would have reached the same conclusion on admissibility and dismissed that ground.
The court also rejected the argument that the verdict was perverse or against the weight of the evidence. It said the threshold for overturning a verdict on that basis was high, and that the evidence before the trial court could support a guilty verdict if accepted. It concluded the verdict was open to the trial court on the evidence presented.
The judgment records that all grounds of appeal against conviction failed. It expressly deferred the sentence appeal for a later determination; it did not uphold or dismiss that appeal in this judgment.