An 80-year-old grandfather jailed for the repeated rape of his granddaughter and the sexual assault of her two younger sisters has failed in his bid to overturn his conviction.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to ten years' imprisonment with one year suspended in June of last year for six rapes he denied occurred in Co Galway between 2014 and 2018.
The girl was five-years-old when the pensioner began molesting her in 2009 and was aged between 10 and 14 when the rapes occurred.
At the time of the trial, he had already admitted to sexually assaulting the girl and her two sisters 81 times in total when the victims were aged between five and 14 but had denied the six rapes of the eldest sibling. He was jailed for five years for the sex assaults which were to run concurrently to the rape sentences.
Trial judge Ms Justice Karen O'Connor said that the man abused a position of trust and was a mature adult when he continued to carry out "cold, callous and cruel" offending.
After his conviction by a unanimous jury, the then 17-year-old girl told the court that she hopes her case will help other victims of sexual violence.
Convictions
Lawyers for the accused had appealed the six rape convictions and at a previous hearing Kathleen Leader SC, for the man, had argued that the trial judge erred when delivering her charge to the jury on May 16th last year.
Both the written submissions and the oral argument centred on the trial judge's comments that the defence in cross examination did not fully question the complainant on some details she made during interviews by a specialist Garda interviewer, which were played to the court on a DVD.
In her charge to the jury, Ms Justice O'Connor said that the defence in their cross-examination of the complainant made no reference to matters raised during the specialist interviews, including the "pain or to the weight of [the accused] and how it felt to have the weight of [the accused] who's been described as a big man on top of her, and that her account to her mother in her note was of sexual assault and that she did not use the word 'rape', she referred to 'sexual assault'".
"You weigh up all of the evidence you have heard in the trial," said Ms Justice O'Connor. "These were not put to [the complainant by the defence], these submissions which I've referred to were not put to [the complainant] and it will be a matter for you to weigh up all the evidence in relation to what you have heard during the course of the trial and to consider the significance you attach to any of the evidence which you have heard," she told the jury.
In written submissions to the three-judge court, Fiona Murphy SC, who acted for the man at trial, submitted that "the judge's charge placed the jury in a position where they were told that if the defence wished to rely on an issue, they ought to have put it [to the complainant at the trial] and that would seem to stray into some obligation on the defence.
In addition, thereto, it is submitted that the jury were left with the impression that something underhand was done by the applicant [the defence]".
At the Court of Appeal today, President Mr Justice George Birmingham said the judge’s remarks “could scarcely have been more restrained”.
Appeal
Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Birmingham said: “It seems to us beyond doubt that the judge was entirely within her rights to draw the attention of the jury to the fact that the criticisms of the complainant for not dealing with certain matters in her narrative were in the context that those were not issues raised with her.”
He said the court did not think it is an answer to that point to say, as defence counsel did, that these were issues canvassed during the course of the specialist interview, and, accordingly, there was no onus on the defence to deal with these issues and the judge should refrain from comment.
“For our part, we have no doubt that the judge might have chosen to address the issue in less restrained terms, but we are satisfied that the manner in which she did so is not one that can be criticised,” he added. “Accordingly, we dismiss what is in effect the sole ground of appeal.”
At the trial, John D Fitzgerald SC, prosecuting, told the court that the man would molest the eldest girl while taking her out on the tractor on his farm and also in her family home.
When she turned 10, he began raping her and this continued for four years, he said. The child told a friend who told the complainant to tell her parents and in 2019, the girl wrote a letter to her mother disclosing the abuse.
In her victim impact report, the eldest girl said that her grandfather destroyed her childhood. After abusing her he would tell her “it was our secret” and that he loved her.
Her younger sister was aged eight when her grandfather began molesting her in 2016. He continued sexually assaulting her for the next three years.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/, or visit Rape Crisis Help.
