A rape trial jury at the Central Criminal Court which spent two nights in a hotel was discharged yesterday after it failed to return verdicts in 24 of the 25 counts before it.
Earlier, the jury returned one verdict that a now 25-year-old man was guilty of attempted rape of his now 16-year-old foster sister at their home on a date between October 1997 and February 1998. The verdict was by a 10-1 majority.
Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill discharged the jury on day 15 of the trial after the 11 members announced they could not return unanimous or majority verdicts on the remaining charges. The jury had been deliberating for 14 hours and 33 minutes at that stage, having delivered the guilty verdict on one count following some seven hours on Saturday, day 14, of the hearing. Mr Justice O'Neill thanked the jurors for their work on what he said was a most difficult case and said their failure to deliver verdicts in the 24 remaining charges was not surprising.
The accused man had pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial to 13 charges of rape and 12 charges of oral rape which were alleged to have taken place on unknown dates between 1997 and 2001.
Mr Justice O'Neill amended the oral rape counts to attempted rape following legal discussions at the end of the prosecution case last week. He remanded the defendant on continuing bail for sentence next February and directed the preparation of a victim impact statement for that hearing. He made an order at the start of the trial that no place names, including geographic areas, or names of witnesses could be published in the media to protect the identity of the girl.
Aileen Donnelly SC prosecuting, told the jury that the victim had been placed in foster care with the defendant's family after her mother alleged her husband was abusing their then pre-teen daughter. The victim, who has been assessed to have a mental age of seven years and 10 months, said in evidence given by video link that her foster brother would tell her to go to tidy her room and she would wait there while he gathered items of clothing from around the house which he made her wear while abusing her.