The Court of Appeal has dismissed Declan Tynan’s appeal against his violent disorder conviction and affirmed the conviction. The judgment, delivered on 7 July 2017, dealt only with the conviction appeal, not his appeal against sentence.
Tynan was convicted in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 16 December 2016 of violent disorder under section 15 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994, as amended. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended.
The trial concerned an incident at Ladbrokes Bookmakers in Killinarden, Tallaght, on 13 December 2012. Bookmakers’ employees said a number of men entered the premises, one carrying a knife. A customer was knocked to the ground, and an employee saw a man swing a knife towards him. The customer’s brother was also targeted, and a bin or stool was thrown at him. Gardaí found a person with stab wounds and brought him to Tallaght Hospital. The court noted that neither that person nor his brother co-operated with the investigation, and no medical or victim impact report was obtained.
The prosecution’s identification case rested centrally on Garda Patrick McAvinue’s recognition of Tynan and two other men in CCTV footage and still images. McAvinue said he knew Tynan from prior encounters while working in community policing and a drugs unit. The Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the recognition evidence should have been excluded because Gardaí had not made contemporaneous notes of the viewing. It said there was no statutory or other obligation to exclude the evidence for that reason, and the people present at the viewing had given accounts of what happened.
The court also rejected challenges to a remark by the investigating sergeant suggesting other witnesses could support the identification, and to the trial judge’s response to a jury question about whether the identification came from footage, stills or both. The judge had told the jury that the case depended on one witness, McAvinue, and the court considered that she had set out his differing formulations to the jury. The jury had returned a majority verdict.
Finally, the appeal court upheld the trial judge’s refusal to provide the defence with Garda PULSE records, even in redacted form. The appeal court noted the prosecution’s assurance that the records contained nothing that would assist the defence and that redaction would leave the same information as McAvinue’s statement. It said the defence could have asked the trial judge to review the records but had not done so.
The court dismissed all grounds of appeal and affirmed the conviction. The judgment makes no decision on the separate appeal against sentence.