Violent abuser who raped, urinated on and poured bleach over partner fails in appeal

A VIOLENT ABUSER who raped his former partner and subjected her to “extreme” domestic violence, during which he urinated on her, poured bleach over her and flushed her head down a toilet, has failed to convince the Court of Appeal that his conviction should be overturned.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his ex-partner, subjected his victim to a prolonged barrage of degrading attacks, pleading guilty to 32 counts of assault causing harm.

The offences included smashing the victim’s head off a whiteboard, kicking her, flushing her head down a toilet, dragging her by the hair, spitting in her face and hitting her with an iPad.

Following a trial in November 2021, a jury convicted the 53-year-old of 18 more counts of assault causing harm, making a threat to kill and two counts of rape. These offences included urinating and pouring bleach on the victim and punching her. He had pleaded not guilty to these offences.

The assault offences all took place in Dublin on various dates between 15 August and 5 September 2016, the day he raped the victim.

In dismissing the man’s appeal today, Mr Justice John Edwards noted the victim had been subjected to “abusive, degrading and humiliating” assaults.

He said the woman had given evidence of her head smashing against a whiteboard with such force that the item broke and had described having her head flushed down the toilet on two occasions. She described how the appellant put her head down the toilet and flushed it and, when she began to come back up, he would push her head down again.

The judge said the woman had also told how on one occasion she had been ordered to the bedroom to “earn the roof over your head”. When she delayed to finish ironing a child’s school uniform, the appellant then threatened to brand her with the hot iron.

The defendant’s lawyers had argued that comments made in the prosecution’s closing speech expressing personal opinion were “unacceptable” and could have had a “deleterious effect”.

Hugh Hartnett, representing the man, said prosecution counsel in her closing statement had told the jury that the complainant gave evidence in this case “of a kind I say that was clear, was consistent, was true, it was credible and it was reliable”.

Counsel said the words “I say” were used on a number of occasions during the speech.

He also contended that “excessive” and “unjustified” interruptions by prosecution counsel during his cross-examination of the complainant created “an unfairness”.

However, the State’s legal team said it was wrong to “decontextualise” and “cherry-pick” remarks made to suggest they visited unfairness on the defendant.

Anne-Marie Lawlor, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, submitted that it is “perfectly acceptable” for prosecution counsel to “contend for the truth of a complainant in a rape case”.

Counsel, who prosecuted the case in the lower court, said where a “wholly false” premise was advanced in a trial, it was incumbent on the prosecution to bring it to the court’s attention.

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Delivering judgment today, Mr Justice Edwards said that while the prosecution closing speech did contain “repeated inappropriate expressions of personal opinions” about the reliability and credibility of the evidence given by the complainant, the court was satisfied that the trial judge was justified in not discharging the jury.

Mr Justice Edwards said prosecuting counsel “crossed the line” between what was appropriate and inappropriate – due primarily to “infelicitous language” in the phraseology of her closing submissions – but also noted there was no deliberate attempt on her part to “inappropriately” influence the jury.

He said the degree of unfairness created was not such as to be “irremediable” by means of appropriate instructions given to the jury by the trial judge.

Mr Justice Edwards said the trial judge addressed the issue by emphasising to the jury immediately after the prosecution’s closing and in advance of his charge that whatever counsel had said to them was “not evidence of any kind” and addressed the issue again in his directions to the jury.

Regarding the complaint of excessive interruptions, Mr Justice Edwards said the case in that regard had been “overstated”.

He said the court was satisfied that none of the interruptions were “gratuitous” or made inappropriately in an attempt to put defence counsel off his stride.

“As far as we can see, many of them were in fact plainly justified,” he added.

Mr Justice Edwards said the trial judge dealt with the issue “impeccably” and his actions were sufficient to remediate any potential unfairness.

“A discharge of the jury in the circumstances of this case would not have been justified,” he said. “The appeal is accordingly dismissed”.

In December 2022, Mr Justice Michael McGrath at the Central Criminal Court sentenced the man to 12 years with six months suspended.

Passing sentence, the judge said that the rape offences took place against a background of extreme domestic violence.

He said the sheer volume of the assaults spoke to the “terror and great violence” of the situation and noted there was a level of depravity in the offending.

The man’s sentencing hearing was told that in August 2016, the defendant became jealous after seeing photos of the woman on a work night out with male colleagues and began calling her a slut and a whore. She described how every day for the next three weeks he punched her, kicked her and dragged her by the hair around the house.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she was petrified when she finally left the family home with her children to go to a women’s refuge and feared the man would find her and kill her.

The woman said that she was in the “mindset that it was all her fault” and that “the children were scared and neither child wanted to be apart from me, even to just go to the toilet”.

When the children spent time with their father, he told them that he forgives the victim and wanted her back, the court heard.

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