The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed an appellant’s convictions for six counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault, finding that the jury directions on corroboration and delay were deficient. It ordered a retrial but rejected the argument that the prosecution evidence should have been withdrawn from the jury.
The appellant, identified in the judgment as D, was tried in the Central Criminal Court from 23 to 27 January 2012. He had pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of indecent assault and two of sexual assault, alleged to have occurred between October 1988 and June 1991. The jury convicted him on six indecent assault counts and one sexual assault count, and acquitted him on the other counts. The trial judge had directed acquittals on three of the earliest counts.
The complainant, identified as D.F., was 37 at trial and was the appellant’s nephew. The judgment said his testimony was the prosecution’s main evidence and was not corroborated. He first complained to gardaí on 28 August 2009. The trial judge imposed eight years on each indecent assault count, with the final two years suspended, and five years for sexual assault.
On appeal, the court found that the trial judge’s remarks before closing speeches did not make clear whether a corroboration warning would be given or the reasons for the decision. In the jury charge, the judge said there was no evidence capable of amounting to corroboration and that the jury could still convict if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. But the charge did not explain why the absence of corroboration called for care, or connect the issue to the long interval before the complaint and trial. The appeal court concluded that the warning was not clear and unmistakable.
The court also found that, although the judge read the jury a general passage about difficulties caused by delay, he did not apply those issues to the case. The judgment cited the complainant’s age when the alleged events were said to have happened, the lack of any suggestion of dominion that might explain the delay in complaining, and the appellant’s mother’s death in 1998. The defence had suggested she would have been in the house during the alleged offences. The court said the jury needed to understand how delay could affect the case before it.
The court held that both deficiencies required the convictions to be quashed and a retrial ordered. It was not persuaded that the case should have been stopped at the end of the prosecution evidence, finding there was sufficient evidence on which a properly directed jury could convict if it accepted that evidence. The judgment does not state the outcome of any retrial.