The Court of Appeal has dismissed Kevin Walsh’s appeal against his convictions for threatening to kill or cause serious harm and threatening to damage property. The judgment, delivered on 18 December 2020, dealt only with the appeal against conviction, not his separate appeal against sentence.
Walsh was convicted in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 1 July 2019 of two threats offences under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 and one offence of threatening to damage property under the Criminal Damage Act 1991. He was sentenced on 25 July 2019 to concurrent terms of six years and six months. The appeal judgment does not determine that sentence appeal.
The prosecution case concerned calls made on 1 July 2018 to Amanda Burke, who said Walsh threatened her, her son Jordan, and her home. Burke and Lauren Beresford gave statements to gardaí that implicated Walsh, then later resiled from or withdrew those statements. At trial, both witnesses gave evidence that differed materially from their original accounts. The trial judge admitted the original statements under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 after separate hearings outside the jury’s presence. The jury also heard the witnesses’ trial evidence and could assess the weight of the statements.
Walsh challenged those admissibility rulings, arguing, among other things, that the statements were unreliable and had not been video recorded. The Court of Appeal found an evidential basis for the trial judge’s findings and no error in her application of section 16. It also rejected the challenges to the trial judge’s directions on how the jury should assess the statements, including the complaint that the judge should have given additional warnings about the lack of video recording or Garda notes.
The appeal court also rejected arguments that the alleged words were incapable of amounting to threats and that the trial judge should have directed acquittals. It said the words could be interpreted as threats, including implicit threats, and that whether they were made, understood as threats and intended to be believed were questions for the jury. It found no deficiency in the directions on the offences or the presumption of innocence, and rejected the remaining complaints that the trial was unsatisfactory or the verdicts unsafe.
The court dismissed all grounds and the appeal against conviction.