The Court of Appeal has dismissed John Tighe’s appeal against his 2018 conviction for murdering his six-month-old son, finding no basis to overturn the trial judge’s decisions to admit extracts from a post-mortem report and related expert evidence.
The judgment, delivered on 24 March 2023 by Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, said the child died from asphyxiation after an egg-shaped wad of tissue blocked his airway. Tighe was convicted at the Central Criminal Court on 23 March 2018 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The appeal focused on evidence from the post-mortem carried out by Dr Khalid Jaber, who was outside Ireland and unwilling to return for the trial unless certain conditions were met. The trial judge admitted factual extracts from his report under the Criminal Evidence Act 1992 but excluded his opinions. Dr Roger Malcomson, a consultant paediatric and perinatal pathologist, gave evidence on the cause of death after reviewing the report, photographs, histology slides and other material.
Tighe argued that admitting the report deprived him of the chance to cross-examine Dr Jaber, including about procedures not carried out. Dr Malcomson said a post-mortem CT scan could have improved documentation of the obstruction, but its absence did not undermine his conclusions. The Court of Appeal said the examination was extensively photographed, the material was available to the defence, and Dr Malcomson could be cross-examined. It concluded that the report’s admission did not make the trial unfair or breach Tighe’s rights to natural and constitutional justice.
The court also rejected the challenge to Dr Malcomson’s evidence, saying he could reach conclusions from the admitted factual findings and other material. It found that his evidence about an injury to the infant’s frenulum was relevant but did not decide the central question of how the tissue entered the child’s throat. The prosecution’s case at trial was that a child of that age could not have put the tissue in his mouth and that Tighe had done so; the court noted that the prosecution bore the burden of proving that allegation.
The appeal was dismissed. The judgment did not change the conviction or sentence.