APPEAL COURT OF NORTHERN IRELAND:Queen -v- Ryan Leslie
Neutral Citation number NICA 25
Appeal Court of Northern Ireland
Judgment was delivered by Lord Justice Girvan on June 29th, 2012, the Chief Justice Lord Justice Morgan and Lord Justice Coghlin concurring
Judgment
The applicant had failed to establish any ground of appeal against his conviction of the murder of his 14-week-old son Cameron.
Background
The applicant was convicted on February 16th, 2011 of the murder in September 2008 of his son Cameron, and of causing him grievous bodily harm between August 15th and September 1st that year.
At the time he was separated from the child’s 18-year-old mother, who had agreed he have direct unsupervised contact with the child, including overnight stays. The child stayed with him on the night of August 29th, 2008 and again on the nights of September 2nd and 3rd. On September 4th he was taken to hospital where he died on September 6th. He had 14 fractured ribs, massive brain damage, retinal haemorrhages and bruising.
It was the prosecution case that his father had inflicted a severe blow to the back of his head before his admission to hospital on September 4th. It adduced medical evidence that he has sustained severe trauma 28 to 72 hours prior to death. The evidence of the pathologist was that he died due to head injury. He also gave evidence of past injuries, none of which could have been sustained accidentally.
Expert evidence for the prosecution included evidence concerning retinal haemorrhaging, which the expert, Dr McCarthy, concluded was due to a severe blow to the head. Prosecution evidence on the rib fractures suggested they occurred between seven and 10 days before his death. There was a conflict in the medical evidence between two experts, Dr Mirakhur and Dr Squier, about the time when the blow to the head occurred. Dr Mirakhur, for the prosecution, stated it took place 48 to 72 hours before death, when the infant was in the care of his father. Dr Squier said it could have occurred outside this time-frame.
The applicant appealed against his conviction, claiming the court did not adequately consider the question that he had no case to answer, did not adequately direct the jury on the separate treatment of the two counts and on the standard of proof.
All these grounds were dismissed.
He also appealed on the issue of the treatment of Dr Squier’s evidence, including the fact that during the trial a number of radio and television broadcasts took place which reported the fact that allegations had been made concerning Dr Squier to her professional body, and that she was the subject of controversy in relation to her evidence as an expert on “shaken baby syndrome”.
The judge became aware of this and the attention of the Attorney General was drawn to it, and a further broadcast was stopped. The issue was not raised during the trial by either the prosecution or the defence.
“The fact that the broadcasts had occurred in the course of the trial and that they drew attention to matters of controversy relating to a defence witness should have alerted the court and counsel to the need to consider and properly address the issues raised by those broadcasts,” Lord Justice Girvan said. “The fact that the issues were not adequately addressed constituted an irregularity in the course of the trial.”
Decision
He pointed out that at the outset of the trial the trial judge had stressed to the jury the importance of relying only on evidence adduced during the trial.
He referred to two cases in England where extrinsic material drawn from the internet had been accessed by members of the jury. Given the background of the risk that some of the jurors might have had access to the broadcasts the judge should have taken an opportunity in his summing up to remind the jury in more emphatic terms the requirement to leave out of account any extrinsic material.
However, he pointed out that the Court of Appeal of England and Wales had dismissed an appeal against conviction where it was known that material from the internet had been accessed by members of the jury.
In this case there was no evidence that any juror had actually heard the broadcasts. Even it they did, what was broadcast did not really undermine Dr Squier as such, and if anything portrayed her as a victim of unfair criticism.
Even if her evidence was given the interpretation most favourable to the defence, other evidence clearly and unequivocally showed that the baby was subjected to severe trauma during the hours in which he was in the sole custody of the applicant.
He dismissed the appeal.
The full judgment is on courtsni.gov.uk.