The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed an appeal by a Cork man against his conviction and 10- year sentence for raping and indecently assaulting his then girlfriend's daughter in the 1980s.
Nicholas Tobin (49), Russell Heights, Cobh, had appealed against his conviction, secured after a retrial, on 10 charges in relation to the now 33-year- old woman. She was aged 12-15 years when the offences occurred.
The three-judge court yesterday dismissed the appeal. It rejected arguments by Ciarán O'Loughlin SC, for Tobin, that the trial judge had erred in principle by not warning the jury as to how it should approach uncorroborated evidence. Pauline Walley, for the DPP, said such a warning was not required.
In 2004 Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced Tobin to 10 years in prison and certified him as a sex offender after a jury found him guilty on three charges of rape and seven charges of indecent assault.
Tobin was jailed for eight years in 2000 by Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan following his conviction on 11 counts in a trial related to the same offences. That conviction was later quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal which ordered a new trial.