The Court of Appeal has dismissed D.H.’s appeal against his conviction for sexual assault, leaving the conviction in place. The court refused his application to introduce a victim impact statement as fresh evidence and rejected all five grounds of appeal. This judgment addressed conviction only; the appeal against sentence remains outside its scope.
A jury in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court convicted D.H. on 5 October 2021 of one sexual assault charge. He was sentenced to three years and six months’ imprisonment, with the final six months suspended. The sentence was to run from 13 December 2021.
The complainant told the trial that the assault happened in October or November 2013, when she was 12. She alleged that D.H., then her mother’s partner, touched her vagina during a foot massage at the home where they lived. D.H. denied the assault and described the allegation as a lie. The appeal court did not retry the allegation; it reviewed the trial rulings and the fresh evidence application.
D.H. sought to rely on an unedited victim impact statement prepared after the conviction. It contained allegations of other physical contact before and after the charged incident, which the defence argued conflicted with counselling notes from 2015. The Court of Appeal accepted that the statement was credible and that it had not been available at trial. It ruled, however, that the differences concerned collateral details, did not contradict the complainant’s account of the charged incident, and would not have had a material and important influence on the result. The court refused the application and dismissed the related appeal ground.
The court also upheld the admission of the complainant’s account of D.H.’s alleged reaction when confronted with the allegation, including that he grabbed her arm and pushed her. The trial judge had admitted it as part of his reaction. The appeal court said the evidence was not hearsay and was relevant to the jury’s assessment of the parties’ credibility, rather than being introduced to suggest propensity. D.H. denied grabbing or pushing her.
The court rejected challenges to complaint evidence from two schoolfriends and the complainant’s paternal grandfather. It said the friends’ accounts could be admitted in light of the circumstances of disclosure and that the grandfather’s account contained no specific detail. It also upheld the trial judge’s decision to extend the indictment’s date range from October to the end of November 2013, finding no legal prejudice to D.H. The appeal against conviction was dismissed.