Supreme Court overturns Mr A decision on appeal

THE Supreme Court yesterday allowed an appeal by the State against a High Court decision, last Tuesday, to free a 41-year-old man serving a sentence for the statutory rape of a 12-year-old girl — and ordered his rearrest.

Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, in the High Court on Tuesday, had ordered the man’s release after finding that his continued detention at Arbour Hill prison — where he had served 18 months of a three-year sentence — was unlawful.

The man, who can only be called Mr A, was jailed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on November 24, 2004. He pleaded guilty to the unlawful carnal knowledge of a 12-year-old girl on May 18, 2003.

At the time, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard he had sex with the girl after buying her four Bacardi Breezers and two vodkas.

The victim went to bed around midnight and woke up in the early hours of the morning to get sick, and Mr A then had full sexual intercourse with her.

The application for Mr A’s release came after the Supreme Court ruling that unanimously declared as unconstitutional the law under which any man is automatically guilty of a crime if he has sex with a girl under 15 years of age.

The court made its decision on several grounds, including the failure to allow the defence that a genuine mistake had been made about a girl’s age.

The five-judge Supreme court comprising Chief Justice John Murray, Ms Justice Susan Denham, Ms Justice Catherine Mc Guinness, Mr Justice Adrian Hardimann and Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan yesterday overturned the decision of Ms Justice Laffoy — and made an order for Mr A’s rearrest.

Chief Justice John Murray said the application for the release of Mr A had been made following the decision of the Supreme Court in the CC case.

The court had decided in that case that Section I(1), of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 1935 was inconsistent with the Constitution because the applicant had been denied the opportunity of pleading that he had reasonable grounds for believing the girl was over the age of 15.

The court considered that to deny the applicant in that case the opportunity to put forward such a defence was an abuse of his constitutional rights.

The Chief Justice said it was never asserted that Mr A was denied any such constitutional right since he had never asserted that he had reasonable grounds for believing that the girl was over 15. His counsel had never asserted that he had suffered any denial of justice or of procedural rights.

He said that for reasons that will be elaborated on at a later date the court was satisfied that the warrant for Mr A’s detention must still be considered as lawful and the court was satisfied that his detention on foot of that warrant was in accordance with law.