The Court of Appeal has dismissed Sean Farrell’s appeal against his conviction for assault causing serious harm, leaving intact the eight-year prison sentence imposed after his 2015 trial in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The court also refused Farrell’s application to add a further appeal ground alleging that his trial lawyers had failed to protect his interests. It concluded that the defence decisions identified in the application had been made as part of a considered strategy, following consultation with Farrell, and did not make the trial unfair or the conviction unsafe.
The conviction concerned an assault alleged to have happened on 18 June 2013. At trial, Ryan Hickey’s earlier statements to gardaí identifying Farrell were admitted under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 after Hickey changed his account and said another person, whom he called “Whacker”, was responsible. The jury acquitted Farrell of separate assault and criminal-damage counts relating to an alleged incident between 10 and 12 June 2013, but found him guilty of the serious-harm assault.
Farrell’s appeal challenged, among other matters, the admission of Hickey’s earlier statements, the trial judge’s treatment of Hickey as a hostile witness, the refusal to give an identification warning, the joinder of the additional counts, forensic evidence and the handling of defence witness Niall Byrne. The prosecution argued that many complaints had not been raised at trial and could not properly be pursued on appeal.
The Court of Appeal found no basis to disturb the conviction. It said the defence had chosen not to object to the section 16 statements for tactical reasons, including a decision to challenge Hickey’s credibility before the jury. The court also held that the identification grounds had no substance in light of evidence that Hickey knew Farrell well. It considered the fibre evidence probative and said the differing verdicts on the three counts were supported by differences in the evidence.
In rejecting the proposed new ground, the court reviewed the trial transcript and the former lawyers’ account of their decisions. It found that the defence strategy was viable, even if another team might have chosen differently, and that hindsight criticism did not establish that Farrell had been denied a fair trial.
The court refused permission to amend the appeal notice and dismissed the appeal. It did not quash the conviction or sentence.