Unnamed father loses Supreme Court appeal over child cruelty

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

An unnamed father’s convictions for assault causing serious harm and child cruelty have been upheld by the Supreme Court. The proceedings were reported on 24 July 2024.

The five-judge court considered whether he was responsible for his wife’s actions in inflicting their daughter’s brain injury and whether there was sufficient evidence for the jury’s findings on that count and a count involving burning.

The trial heard that the father had taken part in injuring and choking the child, but there was no evidence he was present when the mother inflicted the brain injury on 2 July 2019: he had been at work since early that morning. In his Court of Appeal case, it was argued that his absence and the delay in telling him about the incident meant he could not have altered the outcome by calling an ambulance.

Mr Justice Peter Charleton said the essential question was whether the father could be held responsible because of his participation in earlier assaults under a plan common to both parents. Giving the Supreme Court’s decision, he answered yes and said there was no reason to disturb the jury’s verdict.

The parents were each convicted in 2021 of two counts of assault causing serious harm and three counts of child cruelty, relating to events at their Dublin home between 28 June and 2 July 2019. Judge Martin Nolan sentenced each to 14 years in prison at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 7 March 2022. The Court of Appeal upheld the father’s convictions and reduced his sentence to 13 years.