The Court of Criminal Appeal has set aside Mark Doran’s conviction for membership of an unlawful organisation and ordered a new trial, finding that errors in the original trial could have influenced the verdict.
The court, in a judgment delivered on 31 July 2009, treated Doran’s application for leave to appeal as the appeal itself. It said it was not satisfied that his guilt had been established on the record before it. The judgment does not acquit him or determine the charge at a retrial.
Doran had been convicted by the Special Criminal Court on 14 November 2007 of membership of an organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, also known as Óglaigh na hÉireann or the IRA. The appeal concerned that conviction only. He had also been arrested on suspicion of possessing information relating to the unlawful possession of a firearm, but was not charged with an offence connected to the Garryhundon events or the firearm charges to which Patrick Dermody pleaded guilty.
The appeal court found that the trial judgment wrongly attributed evidence about Dermody’s movements and activities to Chief Superintendent Michael Byrnes. The account had instead come from Detective Superintendent O’Sullivan and, the appeal court said, included hearsay material that did not concern Doran. The trial court had treated the evidence as unchallenged and as supporting Byrnes’s statutory belief evidence. The appeal court said it could not reasonably exclude the possibility that this error significantly influenced the trial court’s conclusions.
It also held that the trial court had gone beyond what the phone records and interview answers could establish. The records showed calls and texts between Doran and Dermody, whom Doran described as a longstanding friend. The appeal court said contact alone did not corroborate the Chief Superintendent’s belief. It found that the trial court relied on contact across a wider period than the dates addressed in interview questions, and drew inferences without properly focusing on the questions actually asked and the answers given.
The appeal court noted that items found in Doran’s bedroom included military-style clothing, republican publications and documents. Doran said he had a general interest in militaria and a particular interest in republican matters, and that he had been a junior member of Fianna Éireann. The court made no further findings on those materials, the telephone evidence or other aspects of the case, given its decision to set aside the conviction and order a new trial.