Rapist trial a ‘blot on justice’

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Mr Justice Beatson today condemned "the vast cost" to the public purse of Kevin O'Dowd's six-and-a-half-month trial and described the debacle as "a serious blot on the administration of justice".

With top lawyers involved — Mr O'Dowd was represented by eminent QC Richard Kovalevsky — the case is likely to have cost the legal aid budget millions of pounds.

Appeal Court judges ruled that the length of the trial had made it "very difficult for the jury to keep its eye on the ball". Mr Justice Beatson, who was sitting with Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mrs Justice Rafferty, said: "Each member of the court is regrettably driven to the conclusion that the verdicts of the jury are not safe and therefore cannot stand.

"For a trial involving just one defendant and the relatively simple issues that the jury had to decide to have lasted for this length of time, with the consequent vast cost to the public, is not only disproportionate but a serious blot on the administration of justice."

The Crown did not seek a retrial, so Mr O'Dowd, of Lewisham, south London, will now walk free. The 62-year-old thanked the court and gave his legal team the thumbs up as he was led from the dock.

The trial ran from 6 December, 2006 until 22 June the following year. Mr O'Dowd was convicted by a majority verdict and jailed for life, with a minimum of nine years.