Gavin Sheehan lost appeal over shooting and firearms convictions

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Gavin Sheehan lost his Supreme Court appeal against convictions for assault causing serious harm to Ciara Sheehan, who is no relation, and three firearms offences. The five-judge court delivered its judgment on 29 July 2021. The convictions arose from a shooting in Cork city on 15 May 2016.

Sheehan had received an effective 11-year prison term in 2017. The Court of Appeal had previously dismissed his appeal against conviction despite making some findings in his favour.

His Supreme Court appeal concerned the trial judge’s refusal to let him discharge his legal representatives and the use of inferences from his responses to Garda questioning. Giving judgment, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley said she could not find that Sheehan had made a voluntary and informed decision to waive representation and conduct his own defence. She said he had told the trial judge he was still reviewing the evidence and had no defence prepared.

On the evidence issue, Ms Justice O’Malley held that gardaí were entitled to invoke section 18 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 in relation to CCTV footage. She said Sheehan had suggested the object in the footage might have been an imitation gun or a knife, but described those suggestions as implausible.

She found that section 18 did not apply to text messages from a phone, although the messages were admissible in their own right. She concluded that the admission of that evidence had not deprived Sheehan of an acquittal and that there had been no miscarriage of justice.