The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against a man’s convictions for sexual assault and burglary, finding that the trial was fair and the verdict safe.
The judgment, delivered on 10 February 2017 by Mr Justice Birmingham, dealt only with the conviction appeal. The man had been convicted at Wexford Circuit Court on 15 February 2016 by a 10–2 majority jury verdict and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on 5 July 2016. The judgment does not decide his appeal against sentence.
The prosecution alleged that in the early hours of 11 October 2008, the man entered a hotel bedroom in Wexford without permission and sexually assaulted the complainant. The complainant testified that she woke to find a man touching and digitally penetrating her, ordered him to leave, and later found him outside her room. The account was disputed at trial. The defence suggested that the man had entered out of concern for her wellbeing and that she had mistaken his actions after waking.
The appeal focused in part on an earlier trial, which began on 26 January 2016 and ended when the trial judge discharged the jury on the third day. The complainant and her sister had discussed the forthcoming trial and their evidence. The defence argued that their discussions and differences between their statements and testimony made their evidence too unreliable for a jury to consider.
The Court of Appeal said the sisters’ discussions were not, by themselves, grounds for directing an acquittal. It described their apparent checking of each other’s statements as “certainly not ideal” and said it could hinder cross-examination. But it said the significance of the differences—particularly about the man’s trousers—had to be kept in perspective. The sister had not witnessed the alleged assault; her evidence was an account of what the complainant told her.
The court also rejected the challenge to the trial judge’s corroboration warning. The judge told jurors there was no corroboration and warned that it could be dangerous to convict without it. The appeal court found the warning adequate, considering it alongside the judge’s directions on alcohol and the sisters’ discussions. It noted that evidence of the complainant’s distress and medical evidence could arguably have been capable of amounting to corroboration.
The defence sought a further direction that jurors should assess the reliability of the sisters’ evidence even if they did not find an intention to deceive. The trial judge declined to recharge the jury. The appeal court held that his treatment of the issue was adequate in the circumstances.
Concluding that the trial was not unfair or unsatisfactory and that the verdict was safe, the court dismissed the appeal against conviction.