The Court of Appeal has dismissed M.C.’s appeal against 72 convictions for indecently assaulting the complainant between October 1973 and August 1979. The court rejected all five grounds of appeal and dealt only with the conviction appeal, leaving the appeal against sentence for later consideration.
M.C. was convicted by a 10-2 jury majority in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2019. The indictment contained 73 counts. The trial judge directed an acquittal on one count concerning an alleged incident at an unidentified beach; the jury convicted on the remaining 72. M.C. received concurrent and consecutive prison terms totalling 10 years, but that sentence was not under review in this judgment.
The appeal argued that the trial judge should have stopped the case because of delay and the possible absence of helpful witnesses, and that some counts lacked sufficient evidence. The defence also challenged the judge’s warnings about delay and corroboration and said the jury charge was unbalanced.
The Court of Appeal found no error in allowing the case to go to the jury. It said proposed witnesses, including relatives who had not been interviewed, were not shown to have evidence that could assist the defence; suggestions about their potential value were speculative. The court also considered the prosecution evidence sufficient for a properly instructed jury to decide the case, despite inconsistencies about the complainant’s mother’s work and bingo schedule. Those conflicts, it said, were for the jury to assess alongside the complainant’s account.
The court described the trial judge’s delay warning as lengthy and detailed, and found the judge’s treatment of corroboration adequate when the charge was considered as a whole. It accepted there had been a minor error in the judge’s summary of evidence about the mother’s work at a restaurant, but held it did not create a material risk of unfairness. It also rejected complaints that the judge had inadequately covered the defence points about the appellant’s social life and the complainant’s counselling.
The court dismissed the appeal against conviction. It made no decision in this judgment on the separate appeal against sentence.