The Court of Criminal Appeal has quashed the rape convictions of brothers Eamon and Seamus Flanagan, finding them unsafe after hearing new evidence about a key prosecution witness. The Director of Public Prosecutions indicated there would be no application for a retrial.
The convictions followed a joint six-day trial in May 2011. Both men were found guilty by a 10-to-2 jury majority and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with the final 12 months of each sentence suspended. They were later admitted to bail pending appeal.
The appeal centred in part on Daniel Lynch, who had been presented to the jury as a credible witness. At trial, he said he encountered the brothers as he left a hotel room where he had been with the complainant. After the convictions, Lynch swore that gardaí had pressured him to give an account placing the brothers at the room. He later gave evidence at the appeal, where he said his trial account was wrong.
The two gardaí denied pressuring or threatening Lynch. The appeal court described both as credible witnesses. A Garda investigation into allegations of misconduct had found them without substance, the judgment said.
The court also considered information that had not been available to the defence at trial, including Lynch’s account of the circumstances in which his statement was taken, his drinking and self-medication around the time of the alleged offences, and his prior conviction arising from a fatal workplace accident. The court said this material could not reasonably have been known or obtained by the defence before trial and could have been used in cross-examination.
The judgment noted inconsistencies in the complainant’s accounts of who opened the hotel-room door and whether Lynch was still in the room. It also said forensic testing found evidence of sexual relations between the complainant and Lynch, but no testing was carried out to establish or rule out physical contact between the complainant and either brother.
The court concluded that the new evidence was material when considered alongside the trial evidence and that the convictions were unsafe. It had already quashed the convictions at the end of the appeal hearing; the judgment set out its reasons. The court did not order a retrial.