The Court of Appeal has dismissed Kevin Carroll’s appeal against his convictions for rape and section 4 anal rape, rejecting all three grounds argued against the conviction. The court said it was not persuaded that the trial was unfair or unsatisfactory, or that the verdict was unsafe.
The judgment, delivered on 31 July 2018, deals only with the conviction appeal. Carroll had also appealed the severity of his ten-year prison sentence, but that issue was outside the scope of this judgment. The convictions followed a majority jury verdict of 10 to two on 26 January 2016.
The offences were alleged to have occurred on one occasion at a primary school in Tullamore, County Offaly, between 1 September 1997 and 30 June 1998. The complainant was aged between six and eight during that period. She told the trial that Carroll, who conducted drama classes at the school, sexually assaulted her in the school hall. Carroll denied the allegations when interviewed by gardaí and said he did not recall the complainant attending his after-school classes.
The appeal court rejected Carroll’s argument that the jury should have been discharged after former school secretary Mary Berry repeated an alleged remark by caretaker Martin Smith about Carroll looking under girls’ skirts while they were on stage. The trial judge directed jurors to disregard the remark because Smith had not given that evidence. The appeal court said the judge was entitled to refuse a discharge, taking into account the direction and the wider evidence, including Smith’s own testimony about what he said he had seen in the hall.
The court also rejected the claim that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury and a not-guilty verdict directed. It said the evidence that the offences occurred was clear and that conflicts and unusual features in the accounts were matters for jurors to assess.
The final ground concerned a report that a juror smiled or winked as the jury left court, possibly towards the complainant or gardaí. The trial judge did not hold a further inquiry. The appeal court said the reported conduct did not cross the threshold requiring one, and that the accounts did not establish meaningful contact or communication with the juror.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the conviction appeal.