The Court of Appeal has dismissed conviction appeals by three cousins found guilty of rape, sexual assault or aiding and abetting those offences following events at a race meeting south of Limerick City in December 2022.
S.C., B.C. and P.C. were all juveniles when the offences occurred on December 26, 2022. The 16-year-old complainant had attended Patrickswell Racecourse with friends and had consumed alcohol. She later went with the appellants to a Toyota Avensis parked away from the main racecourse activity.
After a 20-day Central Criminal Court trial in Cork, B.C. and P.C. were each convicted by majority verdict of rape and sexual assault. S.C. was convicted of aiding and abetting each man's rape and sexual assault. He was acquitted of false imprisonment.
All three challenged their convictions. Two central arguments concerned the management of the jury. One involved a note sent to the trial judge during deliberations which he declined to disclose because it concerned matters internal to the jury's deliberations. The Court of Appeal held that protecting the secrecy of those deliberations was justified and that no unfairness resulted.
A second issue arose when a juror became ill during medical evidence. The doctor who was testifying and gardaí involved in the prosecution assisted the juror. The appellants argued that the remaining jurors might consequently have viewed prosecution witnesses more favourably. The appeal court rejected that argument, finding no real possibility of objective bias and holding that the trial judge had dealt with the incident properly.
S.C. separately challenged the admission of his garda interview account, the refusal to withdraw the aiding-and-abetting charges from the jury, and the consistency of his convictions with his acquittal on false imprisonment. Each argument was rejected.
The court held there was sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that S.C. encouraged and supported the offences, including his control and movement of the car, his presence, comments and video evidence.
All three conviction appeals were dismissed. Their appeals against sentence remain separate and were not decided in this judgment.