Seamus Marley jailed for seven years for raping two teenage boys, later refused more time to appeal

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Seamus Marley, 45, an alleged IRA member, was jailed for seven years on May 2nd, 2019, for raping and sexually assaulting two teenage boys at what was described as a republican safe house in Co Louth in the early 1990s. The Court of Appeal later refused him more time to appeal.

A Central Criminal Court jury had found him guilty of six counts of sexual assault and two counts of rape after a six-day trial. He had pleaded not guilty. Mr Justice Paul McDermott imposed a number of consecutive and concurrent prison terms totalling seven years, with no part suspended. He also ordered two years of post-release supervision and no contact with the victims.

On July 30th, 2020, the Court of Appeal refused Marley an extension of time to appeal his conviction. His barrister, Michael Bowman SC, said Marley had misunderstood advice to wait until sentence was imposed before appealing. The court said time limits exist to bring finality to criminal cases, and that none of the proposed grounds gave reason for even a modest degree of optimism that they might succeed.

In November 2022, LMFM reported that Marley had failed in a further bid for more time to bring an appeal. It said his lawyers argued that an alleged newly discovered fact showed a miscarriage of justice, and that Mr Justice George Birmingham rejected the application because of a lack of evidence of an agreement between prosecution and defence at his 2019 trial.