Mr Justice John Edwards yesterday quashed the conviction of Mohamed Okda, 33, who was found guilty in October 2017 on two counts of raping a woman and one of sexual assault at a flat in Dublin in February 2014.

Unanimously found guilty on all counts by a jury after a seven-day trial, he was sentenced by Mr Justice Michael Moriarty to 11 years’ imprisonment with the final year suspended.

The Court of Appeal yesterday ordered a retrial over the trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury at all on the presumption of innocence.

Giving judgment, Mr Justice Edwards said that although both sides referred to the presumption of innocence in their closing speeches, the trial judge “unfortunately” omitted to do so.

He said it was “almost inconceivable” that one of the most experienced criminal trial judges on the bench at that time would simply forget to give the jury several important instructions.

He said the trial judge proceeded directly into this charge of the jury, or instructions to them, following “succinct” closing speeches by both the prosecution and defence. He went a certain distance before sending the jury home at lunch, stating that he didn’t want the jury to hear “three long speeches” in one sitting.

Regrettably, Mr Justice Edwards said the “well-intentioned” decision to break his instructions overnight, and resume the following morning “may have had the unintended consequence of causing” everyone in the courtroom “to lose focus” and be “somehow under the mistaken impression after the overnight break that the judge had covered more ground on the previous day than he had in fact done”.

Mr Justice Edwards said the failure to instruct the jury at all on the presumption of innocence was a “fatal flaw” that rendered Mr Okda’s trial unsatisfactory and his conviction unsafe.

He said the failure to instruct a jury on the presumption of innocence had previously occurred in a 2003 trial which led to a successful appeal. In that case, the late Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said the failure to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence risked “understating its importance and perhaps relegating it to the status of a mere technical rule”.

Mr Justice Edwards, who sat with Mr Justice George Birmingham, president of the Court of Appeal, and Mr Justice Brian McGovern, ordered a retrial. Mr Okda was remanded in custody to appear before the Central Criminal Court on Monday.

Ruaidhrí Giblin, Ireland International News Agency Ltd.