The Court of Criminal Appeal has refused Michael McEvoy permission to add new grounds to his appeal against convictions arising from two incidents in County Kerry.
McEvoy was convicted on 6 October 2004 after a jury trial at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court. He received five concurrent five-year sentences on five counts.
The case concerned incidents in December 1999. In one, a truck carrying a man, his young son and a friend was stopped by a group of men. The man was assaulted and suffered a broken arm while the others were kept in the truck and a mobile phone was taken. A week later, another man was assaulted during an attempt to force him into a car.
McEvoy lodged an application for leave to appeal in December 2004. He later sought to add grounds challenging a search warrant executed at his home in Tulla, County Clare, in February 2000.
His new argument was that the warrant had been issued by a District Judge assigned to a different District Court area and was therefore invalid. He also argued that Gardaí who attended to execute the warrant could not lawfully arrest him there. If the arrest was unlawful, he submitted, admissions made during his subsequent detention should not have been admitted at trial.
The court did not determine those arguments on their substantive merits. Instead, it focused on how the trial had actually been conducted.
The transcript showed that McEvoy’s trial lawyers expressly stated that there was no issue with the search warrant and no issue with his arrest or detention on the grounds now proposed. Other challenges to the search, arrest and interviews were actively argued and rejected during the trial.
The court found no evidence that the new points had been omitted through a substantial error or oversight. Nor did later decisions relied upon by the defence establish exceptional circumstances justifying their introduction after trial.
The application to add the four new grounds was therefore refused. The judgment does not determine the remaining grounds in McEvoy’s conviction appeal.