The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against a sexual assault conviction, rejecting arguments that alleged connections involving jurors made the verdict unsafe or created a reasonable apprehension of bias.
The appellant, identified in the judgment as DF, was convicted by a jury at a provincial sitting of the Circuit Criminal Court on 15 February 2019. He was sentenced on 17 May 2019 to three and a half years in prison, with the final year suspended. The appeal concerned his conviction.
The trial related to an allegation that DF sexually assaulted Ms EB, then aged 13, during a sleepover at the home of his partner on 19 August 2015. The judgment records that she said she awoke to find him beside her and alleged that he touched her stomach, chest, back, neck and vagina.
After the jury returned its verdict, the defence sought to have it set aside, citing reported links between jurors and the complainant’s family or a commercial enterprise connected with her father. DF had worked for that enterprise for 11 years as a Supply Chain Manager. The defence also raised the location of one juror’s home in the anonymised town of Ballykissangel and alleged links between the jury foreman’s employer and the enterprise.
The Circuit Court judge found no merit in the application and proceeded to sentence. He said the concerns should have been raised before the jury was sworn and considered that arresting the verdict was a matter for the appellate court.
On appeal, the court said the jury had received the usual warnings about disqualification, interests in the case and knowing parties or witnesses. The defence could have asked the trial judge for more specific warnings but did not do so. The appeal court was not persuaded that the claimed jury connections had real substance. It said the complainant’s father’s evidence was of limited significance and that the claims about a juror’s proximity to a relative in Ballykissangel did not establish an inability to return a true verdict.
The court also rejected a separate ground concerning the jury’s verdict, noting there had been no application at trial to withdraw the case from the jury. It said nothing in the material before it caused it to doubt the trial’s fairness or the verdict’s safety. The appeal was dismissed.