The Court of Appeal has refused W.I. a certificate stating that he suffered a miscarriage of justice, three years after his sexual assault conviction was quashed because additional material was found on the complainant’s phone.
W.I. had been convicted in the Central Criminal Court on 19 April 2021 and sentenced that July to six years in prison, with the final six months suspended. Other counts ended without verdicts and were later discontinued.
His conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 22 May 2023 after defence experts carried out further analysis of the complainant’s handset. The Garda extraction contained 12,384 lines of information, while the later defence examination identified 43,415 lines.
Some of the additional material concerned internet searches relating to sexual matters. The appeal court had previously found that the timing of those searches could have provided a significant line of cross-examination and might have influenced the outcome of the trial. A retrial was ordered, but the DPP entered a nolle prosequi two days later, citing the overall circumstances and, in particular, the unwillingness of a key witness to give evidence.
W.I. then sought a certificate under section 9 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993. Such a certificate can lead to compensation but requires proof of an actual miscarriage of justice, not merely a successful appeal.
In its 1 May 2026 judgment, the Court of Appeal said there had been no finding that Gardaí deliberately withheld evidence. The additional phone material was relevant to a limited issue concerning potential cross-examination of the complainant and was not of such central significance that the prosecution had been fundamentally undermined.
The court described the case as a classic example of the justice system correcting an error through the appeal process. W.I. had therefore not met the threshold required for a miscarriage of justice certificate.