The Court of Criminal Appeal rejected Mark Costigan’s application for leave to appeal his conviction for the murder of Christine Quinn, finding no legal error in either the admission of his blood sample or the trial judge’s decision not to discharge the jury.
Costigan was convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court on 10 December 2004. The appeal court’s judgment, delivered by Macken J. on 28 April 2006, considered two grounds of appeal. It did not reconsider the conviction at a full appeal hearing; it decided whether to grant leave to appeal.
Quinn’s body was found at her home in Kilkenny on 5 December 2002. The judgment said she had suffered about 35 stab wounds, including fatal injuries to her lung, liver and heart. Blood samples collected at the house were tested alongside a sample taken from Costigan at Kilkenny Garda Station on 23 December 2002. He was 16 at the time. The judgment records that he had previously visited the house.
Costigan argued that his father, acting as guardian, had not given informed consent to the blood sample and had been misled about whether Costigan was a suspect. The court found there was ample evidence for the trial judge’s conclusion that no assurance of the kind alleged had been given and that the sample had not been obtained by a ruse or trick.
The court also upheld the finding that consent was valid. It said the father had been told blood was sought, understood that there was no obligation to provide it, and signed a form consenting to the sample from his son. The court held that the trial judge was entitled to find consent from the overall evidence, including the father’s actions and the wording of the signed form.
The second ground concerned statements in the trial judge’s jury charge about blood evidence and an example used to explain inferences. The appeal court accepted that using material from the case as an example was not entirely prudent. But it found the judge’s recharge made clear that the jury alone had to decide whether the DNA evidence matched, that Costigan had no obligation to explain evidence, and that the prosecution carried the burden of proof. The court concluded that the concerns had been adequately corrected and that the judge was not required to discharge the jury.
The application for leave to appeal was rejected.