The Court of Appeal has refused an application by P.C. to extend the time to appeal his conviction for sexually assaulting and raping his daughter, while granting him 21 days to appeal his sentence.
In a judgment delivered on 3 March 2017, the court said the conviction appeal application came almost six years after the prescribed time. It found P.C. had not formed an intention to appeal within that period and had not been mistaken about the deadline. The court said he had believed his daughter would retract her allegations.
P.C. was convicted by a unanimous jury on 25 March 2011 of 60 counts of sexual assault and 14 counts of rape. The offences were said to have occurred over four years, when his daughter was aged between nine and 14. He was sentenced on 26 May 2011 to 10 years on each sexual assault count and 15 years on each rape count, with the final three years of each sentence suspended on conditions including that he keep away from the complainant in perpetuity.
The proposed appeal grounds included claims about the legal advice available to P.C. before and during Garda interviews, fresh psychological evidence, the trial judge’s decision not to withdraw certain rape counts from the jury, and the length of the sentences. These were proposed grounds, not findings by the appeal court.
The court considered a psychological report recording poor memory recall, high suggestibility scores and a diagnosis of obsessive compulsive personality disorder. It described the report as being of “extremely limited value” and said it was difficult to see how it advanced P.C.’s position. The judgment also noted that at trial he had explained his interview responses and did not challenge the admissibility of his admissions or allege a breach of his right to legal advice. His counsel had said the application did not allege a breach of the relevant regulations.
The court said P.C. had “little or no prospect of success” if allowed to appeal, but considered the other circumstances as well. It said the complainant’s right to closure was relevant, though not determinative, and concluded that the interests of justice did not justify extending time to appeal the conviction. That application was dismissed.
The court treated the sentence appeal separately. It noted that the Director of Public Prosecutions did not object to allowing an appeal against sentence and said the court traditionally took a flexible approach to late sentence appeals. It therefore extended the time to appeal sentence by 21 days from the judgment date. The judgment does not decide the merits of any sentence appeal.