The Court of Appeal has dismissed C. Ce’s appeal against convictions for rape and indecent assault arising from allegations of events in Clare in the summer of 1971, when the complainant was 11.
The convictions followed a four-day trial in May 2016. C. Ce was sentenced in July that year to seven years in prison for rape and a concurrent 18-month term for indecent assault. The appeal challenged the trial judge’s refusal to stop the case because of delay, her ruling on evidence of an alleged admission to C. Ce’s son, and aspects of her jury directions.
The complainant said she was indecently assaulted while hunting with C. Ce and raped during the same holiday. Her account of the rape included an allegation that M.C. brought her to C. Ce’s bedroom and placed her in bed beside him. The complainant reported the allegations to Gardaí in April 2004. C. Ce denied wrongdoing in a Garda interview.
The defence argued that the trial should have been halted because M.C., who died in 2008, was unavailable to give evidence. The Court of Appeal described her as a significant figure in the complainant’s account and accepted that her absence was a lost opportunity for the defence. It said, however, that what she might have said could not be known and that assumptions about her likely evidence were not justified in light of the full trial record.
The court also considered evidence from C. Ce’s son about a conversation in which, he said, his father responded to allegations by saying the complainant was partly at fault. The court regarded that evidence, if accepted, as strongly indicative of guilt. It concluded that M.C.’s absence was not so gravely prejudicial that the trial had to be stopped, and upheld the trial judge’s decision to let the case go to the jury.
The appeal court rejected the challenges to the jury directions, including warnings about corroboration, delay and the limited use of lies. It also rejected the challenge to the trial judge’s decision to allow the son to be led through evidence in a modified form to avoid introducing prejudicial allegations concerning other family members.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the entire appeal against conviction. The judgment does not address a separate appeal against sentence.