The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed E.D.’s application for leave to appeal his convictions on 16 counts of indecent assault and 16 counts of unlawful carnal knowledge involving C.D., who was aged between seven and 13 during the periods charged.
The judgment, delivered on 17 February 2006, said E.D. had been convicted by a jury on 6 October 2004. The offences were charged in four-month periods between 8 November 1972 and 8 November 1977. The sentences imposed were to run concurrently. The trial judge had refused leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.
E.D. argued that the prosecution should have identified which alleged incidents related to each count, that the number of counts was prejudicial, and that evidence not tied to particular counts made the trial unfair. The prosecution submitted that the alleged conduct had occurred repeatedly over several years and that the passage of time made greater precision impractical.
The appeal court held that the indictment’s four-month periods and number of counts were not unfair or excessive. However, it found that more particulars could and should have been given. The judgment identified five locations alleged in the complaint, including a car, the family home, a pig shed and a motorcycle. It said the available account also supplied further details about timing and circumstances that could have helped identify the conduct charged in each count.
The court concluded that the trial judge should have ordered the indictment amended to describe each count with as much specificity as the circumstances allowed. But it distinguished that error from its effect on the trial: after considering the trial transcript, it was not satisfied that E.D. had suffered real prejudice.
The court noted that E.D.’s cautioned statement, admitted at trial after a separate hearing, included admissions of indecent assaults at several locations and denied conduct at the pig shed. E.D. disputed the statement’s voluntariness and testified that he had been pressured by gardaí; the trial judge had ruled it voluntary, and that ruling was not appealed. The judgment also recounted the defence case, including E.D.’s denials and evidence of a family dispute over a house site. These were competing accounts before the jury, not findings made by the appeal court.
The court held that the trial judge acted within his discretion in refusing to withdraw the case from the jury. Applying the Criminal Procedure Act 1993, it found no miscarriage of justice had actually occurred and dismissed the application for leave to appeal.