A round-up of today's other court stories in brief
Rapist awaits sentence after guilty plea
A construction worker living in Sligo has been remanded for sentence after he pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping two local women last year.
Jacek Sliwinski (26), a married man from Poland, with an address at Friendly, Sligo, pleaded guilty to raping the women at named places on July 8th and October 1st, 2006.
Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, and Brendan Grehan SC, defending, said the guilty pleas to these two counts were agreed on the basis that all the evidence in relation to them and to two other rape counts involving other victims would be given at the sentence hearing.
Mr Justice Paul Carney ordered that Sliwinski be registered as a sex offender pursuant to legislation.
He also directed the preparation of victim impact reports in relation to all four women and of a probation report on Sliwinski, whom he remanded in custody.
Wife murderer loses appeal
A man jailed for life after he bludgeoned his wife to death with a lump hammer, before leaving her body upside down in the cot of their five-month-old baby, has lost his appeal against his murder conviction.
In July 2006, Goodwill Udechukwu (33) from Nigeria was found guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of Jamaican mother-of-two Natasha Gray at her home at Royal Canal View, Phibsboro, Dublin, on February 18th, 2003.
Yesterday's proceedings had to be adjourned for a time when Udechukwu broke down sobbing.
Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan, presiding at the three-judge appeal court and sitting with Mr Justice Liam McKechnie and Ms Justice Maureen Clark, dismissed the appeal on all grounds and said the appeal court could find no error in principle with the conviction.
Court suspends part of sentence
The Court of Criminal Appeal has suspended three years of the prison term imposed on a man for sexually abusing the young brother and sister of a former girlfriend of his.
The man, now aged 41 and himself a victim of sexual abuse during what the court described as an "appalling childhood", had pleaded guilty to some 300 sample counts of rape, sexual assault and oral rape on the brother and sister during the early 1990s.
Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan, presiding at the appeal and sitting with Mr Justice Liam McKechnie and Ms Justice Maureen Clark, said the offences committed were "quite appalling" and the man had engaged in a "gross breach of trust".
While the appeal court regarded the nine years imposed by Mr Justice Paul Carney as perfectly appropriate, it would suspend three years to take account of the man's "appalling" childhood, his having been institutionalised for a long period and that he had received treatment for his behaviour.