The Court of Appeal has quashed B.K.’s convictions for four sexual assaults and one count of child neglect, ruling that admissions made during a safeguarding assessment were obtained through oppressive questioning and improper inducements.
In a judgment delivered on 14 July 2025, the court said the admissions were the only evidence against B.K. and that she should have been acquitted. It allowed her appeal against conviction. The judgment records that the Director of Public Prosecutions did not oppose the appeal and would not seek a retrial if the convictions were quashed.
The assessment was arranged to inform a High Court decision about access to B.K.’s children. A clinical psychologist, Dr. O, conducted interviews over five days in 2015, with polygraph testing carried out by Mr. C. B.K. made the admissions on the final day. The Court of Appeal noted that she had made no admissions in earlier voluntary interviews with gardaí, and that the prosecution relied on the assessment statements.
At the retrial, Dr. O accepted that parts of Mr. C’s questioning could be understood as inducements and that B.K. might have made admissions because she believed that was what Dr. O wanted to hear. The Court of Appeal described statements from Mr. C including a proposed “deal” and assurances that the interview could end if B.K. gave the expected answers. Dr. O had also told her he believed she had sexually abused her children, followed by a suggestion that she could still pass the polygraph.
The trial judge had serious concerns about the interviews and found aspects of Mr. C’s questioning oppressive, but ruled that earlier appeal decisions meant she was bound to admit the statements. The Court of Appeal held that those earlier decisions had not considered the detailed evidence from the fourth and fifth interview days, or Dr. O’s evidence at the retrial, and therefore had not settled whether the admissions were voluntary.
The appeal court concluded that the power imbalance was extreme because B.K. feared losing access to her children and the assessment report could affect that decision. It said the questioning created an obvious risk that her admissions were untrue. The court held that the trial judge should have excluded the statements; because there was no other evidence against B.K., it followed that she should have been acquitted.