The Court of Appeal has refused to allow fresh evidence in an appeal being run by the teenager who lured 14-year-old schoolgirl Ana Kriegel to a derelict house so that his friend could murder her.

Following the ruling, the court set a date of October 5 to hear the full appeal against the now 17-year-old teenager’s murder conviction.

Mr Justice George Birmingham, delivering the ruling of the three-judge court today, said that the application to bring fresh evidence on behalf of the teenager known only as Boy B does not come near the threshold set for such cases.

He said that Boy ….read more

A man will go on trial for a second time despite being acquitted by a trial judge’s direction of robbing pension and holiday money from an elderly woman at her own back door.

The Court of Appeal today found that the trial judge was wrong to exclude an informal identification parade during which the alleged victim identified the accused. After ruling that the identification would not be allowed in evidence, the trial judge directed the jury to acquit the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

In May 2021 the 38-year-old was acquitted of the robbery charge, where it was alleged ….read more

The Court of Appeal has almost doubled the sentence handed to an “upper echelon” gang member who was caught red-handed with over €1 million in cash and drugs, including 5kg of cocaine in a potato bag.

The Director of Public Prosecutions had appealed the sentence on the grounds that it was too lenient.

The three-judge court found that the five-and-a-half year sentence imposed on James Curtis (51) of Reiska, Kilcommon, Thurles, Co Tipperary was “not an appropriate one and a significantly more severe sentence was required”.

Mr Justice George Birmingham, delivering the judgement, quashed the Circuit Court sentence and substituted it ….read more

(Pictured: Mr Justice George Birmingham. Credit: Collins)

The Court of Appeal has found that a European ruling on privacy arising from Graham Dwyer’s bid to overturn his murder conviction did not prevent gardai from accessing mobile phone data during an investigation into an attempted Kinahan gang hit in 2017.

Dwyer (49), a Cork-born architect who lived in Foxrock in Dublin, murdered vulnerable childcare worker Elaine O’Hara in August 2022 but was later successful in his challenge against the legality of the use mobile phone data in his trial. His appeal against conviction is due to go ahead next December.

Today was the first ….read more

(Pictured: Lisa Smith. Photo: Collins)

The Court of Appeal refused to hear a bail application this afternoon for Lisa Smith, a former Irish soldier who was jailed just five days ago having been convicted of joining Isis when she travelled to Syria in 2015.

However, the three-judge court did agree to take the “unusual step” of first hearing an appeal against the severity of her 15-month sentence when the courts return from their summer break on October 4, before an appeal against her conviction is heard.

Smith watched via video-link from prison as her lawyers asked the court to consider an immediate bail ….read more

(Pictured: Richard Dekker. Photo: Collins)

A violent criminal has lost an appeal against his conviction for murdering 17-year-old Daniel McAnaspie, whose body was found in a farm drainage ditch three months after he was stabbed to death.

The appeal brings to an end a 12-year saga since Daniel, who was an orphan and was in the care of the HSE at the time, went missing in February 2010.

Richard Dekker first went on trial accused of Daniel’s murder in 2013 but was acquitted by direction of the trial judge, who said there was a lack of evidence. Dekker then made legal history ….read more

A gunman who shot a father dead in front of his seven-year-old daughter has failed in a bid to have his conviction overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Keith O’Neill (47) had pleaded not guilty to murdering John Wilson (35) on September 28, 2012, at Mr Wilson’s home on Cloverhill Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.

A jury found him guilty, however, and he was sentenced to life by Mr Justice Tony Hunt at the Central Criminal Court in May 2015. O’Neill had 116 previous convictions at the time.

Lawyers for O’Neill later claimed the conviction was “unsafe and ….read more

A man linked to convicted criminal Cornelius Price has failed in an appeal against his conviction for having a World War II-era sub-machine gun that was found during a garda search near Price’s home in Co Meath.

Stephen Gibbons (58) of Rockleigh House, Richardstown, Gormanston, Co Meath, had denied a charge of unlawfully possessing a 9mm Makarov PM-63 RAK submachine pistol on or about January 15, 2020, at Richardstown in the county. He was convicted by a jury in May 2021 at Trim Circuit Court, who also found him not guilty of possessing ammunition at the same date and location.

At Gibbons’s ….read more

A man has had his conviction quashed for building safety failures after a fire broke out at a Wexford apartment block he owned seven years ago, despite the Court of Appeal rejecting his grounds of appeal.

Returning judgement today, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said the three-judge court would take the unusual step of rejecting the grounds of appeal but quash the conviction due to its concerns about elements of the trial judge’s charge to the jury.

Leslie Peacock (75) was convicted at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court in January 2015 of a “failure to ensure safety in the event of a fire” that ….read more

The law does not require a mandatory driving ban for those convicted of careless driving causing death as a first offence, and a sentencing judge has discretion on the matter, the Court of Appeal has heard.

The court is hearing an appeal brought by Colleen McCann, who is originally from Newry and was given a 12-month fully suspended sentence for careless driving that caused the death of her friend, 17-year-old Ciaran McKenna 10 years ago in Co Monaghan.

McCann (27) with an address at Drumacon, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, was deported from the US in 2017 to face charges in relation to the ….read more