Inga Ozolina loses manslaughter appeal over Roscrea killing

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

Inga Ozolina’s appeal against her manslaughter conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 1 May 2020. The proceedings were reported on 1 May 2020.

Ozolina had pleaded not guilty to murdering Audrius Pukas. The killing took place at The Malthouse in Roscrea on 20 November 2016.

A Central Criminal Court jury found her not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on 29 May 2019. Two months later, Mr Justice Alexander Owens jailed her for four years. He said the jury had accepted that the killing was in self-defence but found that the self-defence was excessive.

Ozolina told investigators that Pukas pulled her hair, pushed her towards the floor and began hitting and biting her during a violent row. Photographs of her injuries, including two bite marks, were shown to the jury. She said she grabbed a kitchen knife to defend herself and that they continued to struggle. In garda interviews, she said the stabbing was accidental; her defence at trial was full self-defence.

Witnesses gave evidence of seeing Ozolina with injuries in the past. She had obtained two safety orders against Pukas, but both had lapsed by the time he died. She told gardai that domestic violence had been an ongoing problem and that she had been in a women’s shelter.

The appeal challenged the admission of Garda Diarmuid O'Connor’s evidence about words he said Ozolina spoke at Roscrea Garda Station. Her counsel, Caroline Biggs SC, questioned the reliability of his note, citing her distressed state, language difficulties and the delay before he wrote it. Ozolina denied using the words attributed to her, although counsel accepted that the garda genuinely believed she had spoken them.

Mr Justice George Birmingham said the trial judge had taken a careful and appropriate approach and that the appeal court could not interfere with his finding or conclusion.