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To a man described as a “danger to society” who was found guilty of raping his very pregnant partner, his sentence was overturned on appeal.
The Central Criminal Court trial had heard that the woman gave birth to the couple’s second child three days after the rape.
The Dublin man (55), who cannot be identified to protect the victim’s anonymity, was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury on two counts of rape at his home on December 22 and December 23, 2014 after a three week trial. in April 2017.
He had already been convicted of three sexual assault charges against the same victim. This 2016 trial heard that the man had filmed these sexual assaults using a torch and his mobile phone. He had denied all charges during the two trials.
Ms. Justice Deirdre Murphy, imprisoned for five years for sexual assaults, had said: “Anyone who is willing to drug another person for their own sexual needs is a danger to society.”
After the rape trial, Judge Paul Butler imposed a concurrent sentence of 10 years in prison with the last two years and six months suspended.
In December last year, the man moved to have his conviction for rape for various reasons overturned before the Court of Appeal.
The man’s attorney, Michael Bowman SC, had argued that the trial judge made a mistake when he told the jury that they could consider the plaintiff’s account consistency as “or corroborative” support for the prosecution case.
The trial judge should not have said “or corroborative,” Bowman said, because the jury had just said that the corroboration was independent evidence. He combined the consistency of the plaintiff’s account with the corroboration, the lawyer submitted, which was an error of law.
In a written judgment issued earlier this month, Judge John Edwards said the question the court should consider was whether “the plaintiff’s consistency” could be “supportive or corroborative of the prosecution case,” as the first-instance judge suggested. instance. .
Judge Edwards said that the evidence pointing to consistency does not represent additional evidence to that of the plaintiff and therefore does not support the prosecution case. He said the court did not believe that such evidence is sufficiently independent of the plaintiff to represent possible corroboration in the legal sense.
He said the court of appeal was satisfied that the judge’s charge contained misdirection in terms of what evidence was capable of supporting or corroborating the prosecution case and that it was reasonably possible that the jury could have been misled by this.
Mr. Judge Edwards said the court would uphold the complaints made by the appellant about misdirection about what it was capable of corroborating and would allow the appeal for this sole reason.
All other grounds for appeal filed by the man were rejected, including one point of appeal regarding adverse publicity prior to his second trial.
Bowman had told the court that the man was convicted of sexual assault in September 2016 and sentenced on February 6, 2017. A jury disagreement on the two charges of rape was re-tried on March 15, 2017, six weeks after the man was sentenced for sexual assault. , and it was argued that the trial could not be postponed due to alleged adverse publicity.
On March 20, an article in the Irish Sun, which had been published three weeks earlier, was submitted to the Central Criminal Court and the judge was asked to dismiss the jury on the grounds of adverse publicity.
Neither the man, nor the complainant, nor the charges of rape were mentioned in the article. He made reference to her ages, her pregnancy and the fact that he had been filmed sexually assaulting her.
Mr. Judge Edwards said the court was convinced that the trial judge adequately addressed the issue of adverse pre-trial publicity and that it was not necessary for him to remove the jury.
In an electronically issued order Tuesday, Judge Edwards said the court will overturn the rape convictions filed on April 6, 2017. A new trial was not ordered.
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