Jean Louis Fancony’s stabbing case to be retried

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

Jean Louis Fancony’s case is to be retried, Judge Tom O’Donnell said at Limerick Circuit Court on 18 April 2023. The judge had previously sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison for stabbing his flatmate.

Fancony was convicted by a jury in November 2020 of assault causing serious harm to Tim Crowley on 22 July 2019. He had pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defence.

Detective Garda Colum O’Shea told the circuit court that the men had disagreed about money and that Fancony stabbed Crowley several times with a large knife at their shared Limerick apartment. Fancony told gardaí in interview that he had acted in self-defence after his flatmate went to grab a knife he claimed was on the kitchen counter. Prosecuting counsel John O’Sullivan said provocation was not a feature of the case and the jury had rejected Fancony’s account.

At the Court of Appeal in January 2023, Fancony’s barrister James Dwyer said the defence had objected to a Garda note of an alleged admission because it had not been read back to or signed by Fancony. Other gardaí at the scene said they could not recall the note. Dwyer argued that the note undermined the fairness of the conviction. The appeal court reserved judgment.

The circuit court was told Fancony wanted to change his legal team ahead of the retrial. The matter was put into a call-over of cases for a later date.