Jonathan Douglas loses Dublin murder conviction appeal

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

Jonathan Douglas lost his murder conviction appeal in the Court of Appeal on 21 December 2015. Mr Justice Alan Mahon, sitting with Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan, dismissed all grounds of appeal. The proceedings were reported on 21 December 2015.

Douglas had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to murder. The charge concerned the killing of Aidan Bryne at Drumalee Avenue, Dublin, on 20 February 2010. He was found guilty following an 11-day jury trial and given a mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Paul Carney on 23 July 2012.

The appeal, which opened in October, centred on the trial judge’s treatment of statements by Douglas’s step-niece Stacey Douglas and her boyfriend Andrew Sheridan. They had implicated Douglas in statements to gardaí, subsequently recanted and were treated as hostile witnesses at trial.

Mr Justice Alan Mahon said the trial judge had not erred in admitting the statements. The jury had heard evidence about the circumstances in which they were made and the witnesses’ efforts to withdraw them. The court was satisfied that the jury had been adequately directed on their truthfulness or voluntariness.

He also said a prosecution witness’s reference to a “gangland killing” ought not to have been uttered. However, it came unexpectedly early in a lengthy trial, and the trial judge’s comprehensive response had negated any risk of prejudice.