The Court of Appeal has dismissed Paul Wells’s appeal against his murder conviction, refusing his motion to add a new ground alleging that the trial judge misdirected the jury on self-defence. The court found no apprehension that the directions caused a real or fundamental injustice.
Wells was convicted of murdering Kenneth O’Brien, whose body was found dismembered in a canal in January 2016. The judgment says forensic evidence showed that O’Brien was shot at Wells’s address and dismembered there. Wells acknowledged shooting him but told gardaí it was in self-defence. He said O’Brien had produced a gun during a dispute and that he fired after both men reached for it. The prosecution case was that the killing was an intended assassination.
At trial, the jury could return verdicts of murder, manslaughter or acquittal. The proposed appeal ground challenged the judge’s explanation of self-defence, including how the judge addressed the burden of proof, excessive force, anticipated attack and whether the options short of murder were presented as merely theoretical. No requisition about the self-defence directions was made after the charge, although defence counsel raised detailed complaints about other parts of it.
The Court of Appeal said the charge, read as a whole, explained where the burden of proof lay and when manslaughter or acquittal could arise. It rejected the claims that the judge had made those alternatives seem theoretical or reversed the burden of proof. The court also held that failing to give the “Palmer direction” was not fatal: it noted that Irish law recognises manslaughter where a person honestly believed force was necessary but used more than was objectively reasonable.
The court acknowledged that the judge had not specifically told the jury that a person may use force in anticipation of an attack. It concluded, however, that the judge’s discussion of Wells’s account made clear the jury could acquit if it considered he feared O’Brien would shoot him if he regained the gun.
In deciding whether to admit the new ground, the court considered the absence of any trial requisition and the explanation that new lawyers identified the point years later. It said the circumstances indicated trial counsel had considered the self-defence charge adequate, and distinguished a prior case involving the omission of a crucial evidential rule. The motion to add the ground was dismissed. As Wells did not pursue his original grounds, the appeal was dismissed in its entirety.