The Court of Appeal has ordered James Flynn to face a retrial on the original charge that he conspired to burgle various properties in the State between September 2012 and January 2013.
The court had already quashed Flynn's conviction on March 10, 2025. The issue in the present judgment was whether there should now be a retrial and, if so, which version of the charge should be tried.
Flynn had originally faced Count 3 alleging conspiracy to burgle various properties between September 11, 2012 and January 23, 2013. During his Special Criminal Court trial, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to convict him on that charge as framed. It then amended the count, without advance notice or submissions from the parties, to restrict the alleged conspiracy to a single burglary on January 23, 2013 and convicted him on that basis.
The Court of Appeal previously held that this procedure breached constitutional and natural justice requirements and quashed the conviction.
Flynn opposed a retrial. His lawyers relied on the almost three years he had spent in custody, the more than 12 years since the alleged offending and claimed prosecution delay. The appeal court rejected those arguments. It noted that Flynn had not served the full eight-year sentence imposed in December 2023 and that some of the elapsed time involved his challenge in the United Kingdom to the warrant used to secure his extradition.
The court then considered which charge could lawfully be retried. Because the Special Criminal Court's amendment was invalid, the Court of Appeal held that the original Count 3 remained the legally existing charge. It also rejected the argument that double-jeopardy principles prevented retrial, noting that no valid acquittal had been entered on that count and that the earlier trial rulings ceased to have binding legal effect once the conviction was quashed.
The court therefore ordered a retrial on Count 3 as originally framed. Whether the prosecution proceeds, and what evidence it presents, remains a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions.