Prosecution witness's helping of collapsed juror used as ground for appeal in Limerick Racecourse rape case

Two boys who raped a teenage girl in a car at Limerick Racecourse were jailed for six years, while a third got three-and-a-half years for aiding and abetting the rapes

All of the guilty verdicts by the 11-person jury were by a 10-1 majority. The juror who became ill was discharged during the trial. File picture: Larry Cummins

A bottle of Lucozade was given by a garda to a juror who collapsed during evidence from a doctor at a rape trial and the witness attended to the juror, but now this has been cited by the defence lawyers as one of the grounds for appealing the conviction and sentence of the three accused.

Two boys who raped a teenage girl in a car at Limerick Racecourse when they were aged just 13 and 15 years were both convicted of rape and are serving six-year sentences in detention. A third teenager who was older than his co-accused was found guilty of aiding and abetting the rapes by moving the car in which it occurred and he is serving three-and-a-half years.

All three came before the Court of Criminal Appeal sitting in Cork this week and appealed both their convictions and sentences.

One of the grounds set out by their lawyers, senior counsel Michaeal Liam O’Higgins, Michael Bowman and Seamus Clarke, related to a suggestion that that the jury might have been more favourably disposed to the prosecution because of the assistance given to the juror who became ill.

They claimed that this matter, and what were classified as other jury management issues, meant that the trial was unsatisfactory and the guilty verdicts unsafe.

Mr Justice John Edwards, on behalf of the Court of Criminal Appeal, said the judges had not seen fit to uphold any of the appellants’ grounds of appeal and dismissed their appeals against conviction.

Summarising the submission in relation to the attention to the collapsed juror, Mr Justice Edwards referred to “the trial judge’s refusal to discharge the jury in circumstances where a medical witness and two garda witnesses, called or to be called by the prosecution, had provided aid and medical assistance to a jury member, who had suddenly fallen ill in court during the course of the trial, which intervention, it was suggested gave rise to a concern, in the nature of a perception of possible bias, that the remaining jury members might then have been more inclined to convict the appellants out of ‘gratitude’ to those who had intervened to assist the juror in distress.” 

In the judgment of Mr Justice Edwards, Ms Justice Nuala Butler and Mr Justice Charles Meenan, they ruled: “In our assessment, no valid concern arises about the trial or the jury’s deliberations in consequence of the incident in which the assistance was rendered to a juror who had fallen ill. We consider that the trial judge dealt with the matter impeccably and with complete propriety. 

"We find no error on the part of the trial judge and consider that he was right not to have discharged the jury.” All other grounds were also rejected and the convictions and sentences stand.

All of the guilty verdicts by the 11-person jury were by a 10-1 majority. The juror who became ill was discharged during the trial.

The contested incidents occurred in a car in a field car park at Limerick racecourse at Patrickswell, County Limerick, on December 26, 2022.

Original sentencing

Dean Kelly, prosecution senior counsel, said: “These boys acted as a group, each of them taking what they wanted from her physically and sexually in the way they went, whether she wanted to or not.

“From the time those three boys are in the car they are acting as a single unit. (name) moves the car — he says he just wanted to go for a drive. That is inherent nonsense. It was so that whatever was going on in the car was going to be done away from prying eyes.

“This is a group working together. (name of driver) is an enthusiastic member of the group who achieves his own sexual gratification."

Mr Justice Paul McDermott said at the sentencing that had the boys — who are all cousins — been adults at the time of the offending, the headline sentence for the rape offences would have been in the range of 15 years to life imprisonment.

“This was a 16-year-old intoxicated girl in a vulnerable situation subjected to rape and sexual assault,” he said. “She was raped one after the other by (the two boys) and in the course of these rapes, she was sexually assaulted.” 

The girl was repeatedly saying no during the assaults. Further indignity and humiliation was heaped upon her by video footage being taken of the incident, the judge said.