The Court of Criminal Appeal has quashed 35 convictions for indecent assault against a former religious brother who taught at a national school in the west of Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s. It held that several errors in the trial, considered together, meant the convictions could not be sustained.
The judgment, delivered on 6 December 2012, concerned an appeal by the accused, identified as C C. The prosecution had originally brought 70 counts. Some were not pursued or were withdrawn by the trial judge, and 35 counts concerning four complainants went to the jury. The jury found the accused guilty on all 35. He appealed those convictions. Although the prosecution also appealed his sentence as unduly lenient, this judgment addressed only the appeal against conviction.
The court identified problems with the judge’s directions on memory and credibility. One complainant, PH, said he had not recalled the alleged events until Gardaí questioned him. The appeal court said expert evidence or a special jury direction on “recovered memory” was not required on the evidence. But it found the trial judge’s comparison of memory to recovering data from a computer hard drive risked suggesting the memories were intact and reliable. The court said memory was central to the case.
The court also criticised the judge’s description of a complainant’s earlier denial to Gardaí as “a feature … of the honesty of the man”. It said that could be understood as the judge expressing a conclusion about the credibility of a key witness, an issue for the jury.
A further concern was the jury’s guidance on corroboration and “system evidence”—the use of one complainant’s evidence in considering another’s allegations. The court said the directions were not sufficiently clear on these difficult issues. It also held that evidence from a witness, CD, was too general and arguably contradictory to be treated as corroboration of DF’s account. The single count concerning DF alleged an incident on an unspecified school day across nearly five years; the court concluded that count should have been withdrawn from the jury.
The appeal court considered these errors cumulatively. Because the prosecution case linked the allegations and relied on evidence about one complainant supporting another, it said the remaining convictions could not be separated from the identified problems. It quashed the convictions. The judgment determined the appeal on the fairness and safety of the trial; it did not make new findings on whether the alleged assaults occurred.