The Court of Appeal has dismissed Nora O’Reilly’s appeal against her conviction for burglary, rejecting her arguments that her trial should have been moved from Waterford and that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury.
O’Reilly was convicted by a jury in Waterford Circuit Criminal Court on 27 April 2023 of burglary under section 12(1)(b) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. She was sentenced on 4 May 2023 to four and a half years in prison. The appeal court heard the appeal on two grounds; two further grounds listed in her notice of appeal were not pursued.
The charge arose after about €48,000 in restaurant takings was found missing from an office above two neighbouring restaurants on John Street, Waterford, on 1 November 2021. At trial, the prosecution evidence included CCTV footage showing a person entering the premises and going to an upstairs office. Gardaí identified O’Reilly from the footage. She was arrested at her home the following day and interviewed; the judgment says nothing of evidential value emerged in interview.
O’Reilly argued that the trial should have been transferred to Dublin because she was “known for all the wrong reasons” in Waterford and was a member of an extended family with some local notoriety. The prosecution opposed the application, saying it lacked evidential support beyond a list of previous convictions. The Court of Appeal said the necessary evidence that she could not receive a fair trial in Waterford had not been provided. It noted that newspaper clippings handed in concerned offences in another county, and that the trial judge had told prospective jurors not to serve if they knew anyone involved. The court found the refusal to transfer the case was a proper exercise of discretion.
On the second ground, O’Reilly argued that Garda recognition of her from CCTV was too tenuous to justify leaving the case with the jury. She highlighted the surgical-type mask worn by the person in the footage, the absence of a distinctive feature identified by Garda witnesses, and the lack of facial-mapping technology or another objective identification method.
The prosecution said two sergeants who had known O’Reilly for years recognised her immediately and confidently in footage where the mask was down. The appeal judges, having watched the footage, described it as moderate to good quality and said the person’s face was visible when the mask was around the chin. They held that the recognition evidence was not vague or uncertain and that its credibility and reliability were for the jury to assess. The court rejected the argument that the trial judge should have withdrawn the case from the jury. It dismissed the appeal against conviction.