Brian Shaughnessy was convicted by a jury in March 2013 and was sentenced to six years with one year suspended by Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan on June 10th, 2013, at the Central Criminal Court. Photograph: Matt KavanaghA former hotelier who was jailed for raping a 17-year-old employee after a staff party broke down as he told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that his defence was not put to the trial jury.
Shaughnessy had claimed these issues were mentioned as an afterthought in a defence speech to the jury, and generally glossed over.It had been argued at the first appeal that this was “new evidence” in that the claim was not on the transcript and it related to the manner in which his legal instructions were addressed by the previous legal team.
Shaughnessy claims the documents contained the time a key card was issued from the front desk in the hotel at 3.23am before he and the 17 year old went “straight up” to the room with wine and two glasses. Shaughnessy told Paul Greene SC, for the State, that this two-hour period was “fundamental” to his defence and that he constantly reminded his legal team of this. Shaughnessy admitted to Mr Greene he had initially told gardaí that he was in the room for 45 minutes and that while he had made other errors, he said his story “never changed”.