A MAN has lost his appeal against a conviction for the rape of a woman more than six years ago.
Bereket Mekonnen (23), a native of Eritrea, was jailed for seven years in 2007 after a jury at the Central Criminal Court found him guilty of raping the woman (43) York Street, near St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, in August 2005.
Following his conviction, Ms Justice Maureen Clark, who described Mekonnen as a “very damaged and disturbed man” who was at high risk of reoffending, also imposed a term of five years of post-release supervision.
The prison sentence was backdated to 2006 when Mekonnen was first taken into custody and he was released from prison earlier this year.
Mekonnen had appealed his conviction on grounds including that evidence of an informal identification should not have been allowed to go to the jury, the judge’s charge on such evidence was inadequate and the verdict of the jury was perverse.
Yesterday, the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed his appeal on all grounds.
Mr Justice Liam McKechnie, presiding, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe, rejected the appeal.
While finding that the trial judge’s charge on the issue of inferences from evidence was “inadequate and incomplete”, the appeal court said it was satisfied that this did not render the verdict unsafe.
The trial heard Mekonnen met the woman outside a nightclub about 2.30am. She had said she was quite drunk at the time and struck up a conversation with him after asking him for a drink from a bottle of wine.
Mekonnen started getting “physical” and, after his advances were rejected, he proceeded to rape her.
Mekonnen was traced to a hostel where he was staying and was later identified by the victim, in the presence of gardaí, at Busáras bus station.