The Court of Appeal has dismissed Wayne Kinsella’s appeal against his conviction for the murder of Adil Essalhi, finding no error in the trial judge’s directions to the jury and no basis to admit further evidence from later trials.
Kinsella was convicted on 21 May 2012 of murdering Essalhi on 6 January 2011. He admitted being present when the killing took place but denied participating. The appeal challenged the jury directions on corroboration and civilian witnesses’ credibility, and the refusal to disclose the identity of a confidential informant.
On corroboration, the court said its assessment depends on the circumstances of the case, including the defence raised. The defence argued that CCTV showing three people leaving an apartment and two returning did not implicate Kinsella because he accepted he had been there. The court disagreed. It said the footage had considerable probative value in the context of the case and that his admission of presence did not remove that value. It was not persuaded that the trial judge’s directions on corroboration amounted to a misdirection.
The court also rejected applications to introduce extracts from transcripts of the two trials of Kinsella’s nephew, Michael Kinsella, and evidence from Natasha Carey at one of those trials. The court said the proposed material did not meet the relevance threshold and that later-trial material is generally admissible on appeal only in exceptional circumstances. Michael Kinsella’s first trial ended in disagreement; at his second trial, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The appeal argued that civilian witnesses had colluded to shield Michael Kinsella and had given inconsistent accounts. The Court of Appeal noted that witnesses accepted trying to take Michael Kinsella’s involvement “out of the picture”, while denying that they had colluded. The trial judge had warned the jury about the accomplices’ propensity to lie and their admitted lies, and told jurors they could still rely on their evidence if they found it reliable. The appeal court held that the issue of credibility had been adequately addressed.
The court also upheld the refusal to identify the confidential informant. It found that the claim disclosure would support the defence theory was speculative and that the trial judge’s conclusion that anonymity did not jeopardise trial fairness was open to him. The court dismissed the appeal, concluding that none of the grounds had been made out and that no doubt had been raised about the fairness of the trial or safety of the verdict.