The Court of Appeal has dismissed PB’s appeal against convictions for eight counts of sexual assault and four counts of rape, finding that the trial was not unfair and the verdict was not unsafe. The judgment, delivered on 24 May 2021, dealt with the conviction appeal only; it did not determine the separate appeal against sentence.
PB was convicted on 5 March 2014 after a retrial in the Central Criminal Court. The first trial had ended with a jury disagreement. He received a total sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment on 19 May 2014.
The charges concerned allegations by X, the daughter of PB’s then partner, Y. The indictment covered June 2003 to May 2008, when X was between six and three-quarter years and 11 and a half years old. The judgment records that the alleged abuse took place at the family home in Waterford and another location in the same county. These were allegations underlying the convictions, not new findings made in the appeal.
PB argued, among other grounds, that the retrial should have been halted because X’s maternal grandmother had died after testifying at the first trial. The defence said her absence prevented an effective challenge to the theory that she had encouraged X to make allegations. The appeal court agreed with the trial judge that the retrial could proceed: a transcript of the grandmother’s evidence and cross-examination from the first trial was available, and the defence had agreed that any cross-examination at the retrial would follow the same lines.
The court also rejected challenges to the use of X’s recorded Garda interview as her direct evidence and to her cross-examination by video link. It found statutory authority for the video link and said the suggestion that the jury might have heard material that should have been excluded lacked substance, given that no issue had been raised at trial.
Other grounds concerned the trial judge’s directions on X’s memory and corroboration, a brief reading from the wrong trial transcript during the jury charge, evidence and re-examination, and the jury’s request to replay X’s recorded interview without also replaying her cross-examination. The court found no basis in these matters to overturn the convictions. It noted that the judge had addressed X’s memory and given a corroboration warning, and that the jury’s request related to the recorded interview, where sound-quality difficulties had arisen.
The court concluded it was not persuaded that the trial was unfair or the verdict unsafe, and dismissed the conviction appeal.