The Court of Criminal Appeal set aside the murder convictions of brothers Jeffrey Dumbrell and Warren Dumbrell, finding that public remarks by the judge presiding over their trial created a real possibility of jury influence. It ordered a retrial for each man on the murder charges.
The brothers had been convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of murdering Christopher Cawley in Inchicore, Dublin, on 29 October 2006. Each received the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Warren Dumbrell was also acquitted of a charge of threatening to kill or cause serious harm.
The appeal concerned a lecture delivered in Cork by the trial judge, Mr Justice Carney, during the ten-day trial in June 2008. The lecture and its contents received extensive television, radio and newspaper coverage. The appeal court said the judge’s comments endorsed claims that sentences for fatal stabbing manslaughter cases were inadequate and that fatal stabbings were out of control.
At trial, the jury had to decide whether the prosecution proved murder rather than manslaughter. The court noted that the case involved a fatal stabbing and evidence referring to an intended “fair fight”. The deceased’s wife and daughters were among the prosecution witnesses. The appeal court said those features connected the lecture’s themes to issues the jury had to decide.
When the trial resumed, defence counsel asked the judge to discharge the jury, arguing that the publicity could prejudice the trial. Carney J refused, describing the application as “totally opportunistic”, and offered to give any direction counsel requested. No special direction was sought. The appeal court later concluded that a direction from the same judge would not have removed the potential prejudice.
The court applied the test of whether a reasonable and fair-minded observer would see a real possibility that a juror had been influenced. It considered it likely that most, and certainly a significant number, of jurors became aware of the lecture’s essential points. The timing, the judge’s authority, the publicity and the overlap between the lecture and the murder-or-manslaughter question led it to find a reasonable apprehension that jurors may have been consciously or unconsciously influenced.
The court stressed that it was not deciding whether the judge intended to influence the jury; it found that he did not. Nor was it criticising the conduct of the trial apart from the refused discharge application. It concluded that the convictions were unsafe because the applicants had not received a fair trial, set aside the verdicts and ordered retrials. The judgment records no determination of guilt at retrial.