Sex offender loses appeal

The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a West of Ireland farmer and church Sacristan against his conviction for sexual assault of a young girl.

In his appeal Gerald McNeill (aged 64) had asked the Court to determine if details background evidence of an ongoing sexual relationship between him and the girl, for which he had not been charged, had been correctly admitted during his 2004 trial at the Central Criminal Court.

He claimed that the admission of the background evidence was prejudicial.

Today in dismissing the appeal on a four-to-one majority, the Supreme court held that the exception that allows background evidence to be admitted was correctly applied in this case. In her ruling Ms Justice Susan Denham said the evidence in question was "necessary to render comprehensible facts in this case".

Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan and Mr Justice Donal O'Donnell concurred with the that judgment. Mr Justice Nial Fennelly disagreed.

In June 2004, McNeill of Castlerea, Co Roscommon, was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury on seven charges related to the abuse which the prosecution said had started when the girl was nine and continued over several years.

The jury found that McNeill orally raped the girl, now in her early 30s, in a turf shed on a date in 1991 and also convicted him on two charges of sexually assaulting her in 1992 and 1993. McNeill received an 11-year prison sentence.

The court was told the victim wanted Mr McNeill named in media reports of the case.

McNeill, who denied the charges, successfully petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeal, which had dismissed his appeal against his conviction and sentence, under Section 29 of the Courts of Justice Act of 1924 to have the case referred to the Supreme Court on a point of law of exceptional public importance.

Yesterday Ms Justice Susan Denham said the appeal "did not raise any issues that would bar the admission of background evidence", and that the exception that allows background evidence to be admitted was correctly applied by the trial judge in this case.

The Judge said the court was asked to determine if background evidence of an ongoing sexual relationship between the girl and McNeill was admissible. McNeill was indicted on eight counts of sexual abuse.

However the situation described by the girl was one of multiple occasions of sexual abuse over many years. Therefore the indictment of eight counts did not reflect the reality of the situation described by the girl.

Ms Justice Denham said that "in this case background evidence was not wrongly admitted as it was relevant an necessary to explain the relationship between the complainant and McNeill, and rendered comprehension in the actions of the victim".

There were no breaches of the rights of the appellant by allowing background evidence to be adduced.

The trial judge, Ms Justice Denham added, admitted background evidence, including evidence of behaviour by McNeill and other alleged offenses against the girl. However the Judge added that it is clear that the jury at the trial were not overwhelmed by this evidence as they acquitted McNeill of rape charges.

The Judge added that during the trial the background evidence in this case was treated in a restrained fashion, even though the trial judge gave no direction to the jury on the nature of that evidence.

In his dissenting judgment Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said that based on case law he was convinced that evidence an accused has committed other crimes is not admissible in evidence, and that he would have allowed the appeal and would have set aside McNeill's conviction.

While this generally related to previous convictions the same principle applied to evidence of any criminal acts whether they were committed either before or after the matter which that person is charged.

Evidence was given that after the first offence, McNeill had committed the same offence on many subsequent occasions, could not he said in any sense be regarded as background evidence.

The jury he said may have been prejudiced by hearing evidence of the commission of a large number of other offences.