Rapist loses appeal over claim use of screen to separate him from victim was 'prejudicial'

The jury had heard that he had attacked the woman with a scaffolding pole while she was pregnant with their first child in 1995

In dismissing the appeal today, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said that the trial judge, when allowing the screen to be used, "was obliged to consider and have regard to the need to protect the complainant from secondary and repeated victimisation, intimidation and retaliation". File picture: iStock

A "sadistic" abuser who repeatedly raped his wife and attacked her with a baseball bat and scaffolding pole while she was pregnant has lost a bid to overturn his conviction on the basis that a screen separating him and the victim at trial could have created a prejudicial opinion that he was "a man to be feared".

The violent rapist (57), who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of his victim, had pleaded not guilty to 16 sample charges of anal rape of his then-wife between 2003 and 2007 at a location in Co. Tipperary.