A former couple who carried out a “prolonged” three-hour attack on a grandmother, who lost an eye after she was struck several times with a hammer before being tied up in a bin bag, have had their convictions upheld by the Court of Appeal.
Gerard Stokes (44) and his co-accused Samantha Campbell (36) were convicted of inflicting what a judge described as a “punishment beating” on the woman over alleged missing drugs.
The attack on the woman lasted several hours, during which time Stokes hit the victim repeatedly with a hammer and said he was going to kill her and get rid of her body. He made the woman pull a black bin bag over herself and then tied it.
The pair, both with addresses in Muirhevnamór, Dundalk, were convicted by a jury after a three-week trial in February last year of seriously assaulting the woman at Stokes’s home, falsely imprisoning her, assaulting her friend causing harm, and carrying out an aggravated burglary at that friend’s home in Waterville Crescent on December 5th, 2018.
READ MORE
Stokes received a 13½-year sentence, with two years suspended, for seriously assaulting the victim, who lost an eye in the attack and now uses a prosthesis.
Campbell got a 12-year term on a similar charge, with two years suspended.
Stokes and Campbell had appealed their convictions, arguing that a statement given by the woman to gardaí from her hospital bed should not have gone before a jury as the victim was “in and out of consciousness” at the time.
Dismissing Stokes and Campbell’s appeal against their convictions on Monday Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy ruled that there was no error on the part of the trial judge in admitting the statement into evidence.
She said Judge Dara Hayes had properly applied the legal principles and ultimately had determined that the statement had been made voluntarily and was reliable in the correct sense.
Ms Justice Kennedy noted Stokes and Campbell had summoned the woman, who was an acquaintance, to Stokes’s house for questioning about a package of cocaine they had allegedly asked her to hold for them. Upon its return, they claimed a portion of it was missing.
She said they inflicted a series of attacks on the victim in an attempt to find out what had happened to the allegedly missing drugs.
Campbell punched the woman in the face and pulled her hair. Stokes took the victim’s phone and ordered her to stand on black bin bags on the floor. He picked up a hammer and told Campbell that punching and kicking was not working and that it was time to “finish” her “off”.
Stokes hit the woman five times with the hammer and then said he was going to kill her and get rid of her body.
He turned the victim to face him and hit her with the hammer on her head and right eye. He told the woman to pull the black bin bag over herself, and he then tied it, striking her again in her genital area and upper thigh.
This “prolonged” attack on the victim lasted about three hours, Ms Justice Kennedy said.
At the appeal hearing last month, Roderick O’Hanlon SC, for Stokes, argued that that the jury should not have been allowed to rely on the statement, as no medical evidence was given during the trial to show that the witness was fit to make it.
A subsequent letter from a solicitor to gardaí indicated the woman wished to withdraw her statement due to memory loss and psychiatric issues, Mr O’Hanlon said. The statement was nevertheless admitted into evidence following a voir dire.
