The Court of Appeal dismissed J.K.’s appeal against his conviction and sentence for rape, rejecting two challenges to the trial judge’s directions to the jury.
J.K. had been tried in the Central Criminal Court on two rape counts relating to alleged incidents on 21 January and 7 March 2015. On 21 February 2018, the jury found him not guilty on the January count and guilty on the March count by a 10–2 majority. He was sentenced on 11 June 2018 to six years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended on conditions, backdated to 1 January 2017. He was also placed on the sex offenders register.
The appeal concerned only the conviction on the March count. J.K. argued that the trial judge had not properly explained recklessness when the jury asked for a written definition, and that the judge’s corroboration warning was inadequate.
On recklessness, the Court of Appeal said the trial judge had misread part of a legal definition and later gave the jury a passage from an English Law Commission report. That passage could suggest a form of objective recklessness that does not form part of Irish law. The court described this as a misdirection to that extent. It said, however, that the correct general rule had also been stated: recklessness required the accused to have adverted to a substantial and unjustified risk that the complainant was not consenting and to proceed regardless.
The court concluded there was no appreciable risk that the jury had been materially misled. Neither side had advanced reckless indifference as an issue at trial; the prosecution’s case was that J.K. knew the complainant was not consenting or had adverted to that possibility. The appeal court therefore rejected this ground.
On corroboration, the trial judge had told the jury there was no independent evidence of the alleged acts, but that there was supportive evidence concerning the March complaint. After defence counsel asked for a clearer warning, the judge told the jury to take “particular care” where there was no corroboration, referring to past wrongful convictions and flawed recollection.
The Court of Appeal said the warning was not a model and could have been better contextualised, but considered the judge’s remarks cumulatively adequate in the circumstances. It also noted that the trial judge’s view that nothing could amount to corroboration of the March complaint was questionable, but had favoured the appellant. Both appeal grounds were rejected, and the appeal was dismissed.