Teenager’s sexual assault conviction upheld by Supreme Court

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

The Supreme Court dismissed a teenager’s appeal against his sexual assault conviction, in a three-to-two decision. The proceedings were reported on 23 May 2022. The offence involved smacking a neighbouring six-year-old child on the bare buttocks in a field near their homes in 2019.

The majority held that sexual assault is assessed objectively and does not require prosecutors to prove a sexual motive when an assault occurred in indecent circumstances. The conviction followed a 2020 Central Criminal Court trial, and the offence was dealt with through a community sanction with probation supervision until 2023.

Two judges dissented, saying the conviction should have been replaced with one for common assault because the circumstances could have had an innocent interpretation. In his dissenting judgment, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan noted that it had been accepted that there was no sexual element to the teenager’s conduct. The Supreme Court’s majority ruling left the sexual assault conviction in place.