The Court of Appeal has allowed Brian Quinn’s appeal against conviction and directed a retrial, finding deficiencies in the trial judge’s directions on self-defence and the reliability of some prosecution witnesses.
Quinn had been convicted after a 12-day trial in Dublin Circuit Court in November 2013. The convictions included causing serious harm to Lee Harte, assault causing harm to Curtis Lennon and James Toner Jnr, and producing a knife capable of inflicting serious injury. The judgment says the sentences were concurrent, with an eight-year term for causing serious harm. Quinn was acquitted of three other counts. The appeal judgment dealt only with conviction, not his separate appeal against sentence.
The prosecution said an argument outside homes on Deerpark Avenue in Tallaght escalated into a physical altercation during the early hours of 9 October 2011. It alleged Quinn dragged Harte into his home and stabbed him, then stabbed four others who came to help. The defence said a group had attacked Quinn’s partner and entered their home, and that any force Quinn used was to repel the perceived invasion and attack. The defence also said Quinn had been struck with a baseball bat before any stabbing.
The appeal court held that the jury may have been confused about the test for self-defence under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The legal test required the jury to consider the circumstances as Quinn honestly believed them to be; reasonable grounds could be considered when assessing whether that belief was honestly held. The court said further directions had emphasised the objective element so strongly that the jury may not have understood the test. It also held the trial judge should have drawn the jury’s attention more clearly to the special latitude recognised in law for a person defending their home from attack.
The court did not find that an accomplice warning was required. It said the trial judge had discretion to refuse one, but should have told jurors to take particular care when assessing witnesses who conceded they might have been liable to prosecution for other offences.
Other grounds failed. The court upheld rulings allowing a prosecution witness’s statement to be read to him because of his reading difficulty, permitting a witness’s description of Quinn’s expression as “evil”, and allowing evidence that five complainants had no previous convictions after Quinn put his good character in issue.
The court allowed the appeal against conviction and ordered a retrial. It made no decision in this judgment on the appeal against sentence.