DPP v B S
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | O'Donnell J.,Charleton J.,O'Malley J. |
| Judgment Date | 20 November 2020 |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] IESCDET 130 |
| Date | 20 November 2020 |
| Court | Supreme Court |
| Docket Number | Supreme Court record no: S:AP:IE:2020:000107 Central Criminal Court record no: Bill No. CCDP0090/2011 |
THE PEOPLE AT THE SUIT OF THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
[2020] IESCDET 130
O'Donnell J.
Charleton J.
O'Malley J.
Supreme Court record no: S:AP:IE:2020:000107
Court of Appeal record no: 2013 No 151
Central Criminal Court record no: Bill No. CCDP0090/2011
THE SUPREME COURT
DETERMINATION
RESULT: The Court grants leave to the Applicant to appeal to this Court from the Court of Appeal.
ORDER SOUGHT TO BE APPEALED
| COURT: Court of Appeal |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT OR RULING: 9 th April 2020 |
| DATE OF ORDER: 9 th April 2020 |
| DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 15 th September 2020 |
| THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL MADE ON 2 nd October, 2020 AND WAS IN TIME |
The general principles applied by this court in determining whether to grant or refuse leave to appeal are well known and are fully addressed in both a determination issued by a panel consisting of all of the members of this court in B.S. v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2017] IESCDET 134, (Unreported, Supreme Court, 6 December 2017), and in a unanimous judgment of a full court delivered by O'Donnell J. in Quinn Insurance Ltd. v. PricewaterhouseCoopers [2017] IESC 73, [2017] 3 I.R. 812.
The application for leave filed and the respondent's notice are published along with this determination (subject only to any redaction required by law). It is therefore unnecessary to set out the position of the parties in any detail.
The applicant was convicted on one count of rape in the Central Criminal Court on the 22 nd of March, 2013. For reasons that have not been explained to this Court, his appeal against conviction, although apparently lodged within the appropriate time, has only recently come to be dealt with by the Court of Appeal. That Court upheld the conviction (see Director of Public Prosecutions v. B.S. [2020] IECA 95 – order perfected on the 15 th of September, 2020). He now seeks leave to appeal to this Court.
The applicant was the owner of a hotel in which the complainant, then aged 17, had a part-time job. The rape was alleged to have occurred in one of the hotel bedrooms on the night of a staff party.
In statements to the Gardaí, the complainant had said that she was in the room for about thirty minutes, while the applicant told them they were there together for forty-five minutes. Counsel for the defence did not, in cross-examination of the complainant, put it to her that she had been there for any longer than that. However, evidence given later in the trial established: a) that the key card used for the room had been cut by the porter, at the request of the applicant, at 3.23 a.m.; and b) that the porter had made a number of phone calls in an effort to get a taxi for the complainant, again at the request of the applicant, with the last call being at 5.41 a.m. In closing, counsel made the case that this evidence meant that the complainant and appellant had been in the room for about two hours. Counsel for the prosecution objected that this had not been established, since there was no evidence that they had gone there immediately on receipt of the card, and the trial judge agreed.
The porter gave evidence of speaking very briefly to the complainant as she left the hotel. He described her demeanour as “panicked”.
The trial judge gave a corroboration warning. He...
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