The Court of Appeal has dismissed Archilli Mindadze’s appeal against his conviction for assault causing harm, rejecting a challenge to the admission of a witness’s earlier statements and finding the trial judge’s directions to the jury adequate.
The judgment, delivered on 6 March 2018 by Mr Justice Birmingham, concerned a conviction recorded on 19 October 2016. The offence particulars said the assault occurred on 1 November 2014 at a named address in Lucan and involved Valdis Cunckis. Mindadze was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended. The jury had acquitted him on a second assault count, and an aggravated burglary count had been dismissed by direction of the trial judge.
The appeal focused orally on whether the trial judge was right to admit statements made to gardaí by Tea Kaplanishvili under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. In her statements, Kaplanishvili said she recognised one of three men who entered her home after an incident at a Dublin bar as her former boyfriend, and identified another man by the name “Achico”. At trial, she said she could not identify the third man and was unsure whether she knew him.
The appeal court noted that the parties did not dispute that the statements had been made voluntarily, that they contained statutory declarations, or that the principal statement had been video recorded. The dispute concerned reliability and whether admitting the statements was in the interests of justice. The court concluded that the trial judge’s decision to admit them was open to her. It said the witness had changed her evidence, but found no evidence supporting prosecution suggestions of payment or intimidation.
The court also considered the written challenge to the jury directions, although that issue was not argued orally. It said the trial judge could have explained more explicitly that the out-of-court statements had not been made under oath or affirmation. However, the judge had directed jurors to assess the statements’ weight alongside the witness’s oral evidence and the circumstances in which the statements were made. The appeal court held the charge adequate in the circumstances.
The court dismissed the appeal. The judgment addressed the admission of the statements and the jury directions; it did not alter the trial outcome or sentence.