The Court of Appeal has dismissed Larry O’Connor’s appeal against convictions arising from a 2019 firearms incident at a home in Askeaton, County Limerick. The court rejected his sole ground of appeal, which challenged the admission of background evidence about relationships and tensions involving a complainant and people not named on the indictment.
O’Connor was convicted after a Circuit Criminal Court trial in Limerick that began on 22 February 2022. The convictions included firearms and ammunition offences, reckless discharge of a firearm, criminal damage and aggravated burglary. He received an aggregate 12-year prison sentence on 31 May 2022. The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered by President Birmingham on 11 July 2023, concerned the conviction appeal.
The prosecution case at trial was that, during the night of 13 July 2019, occupants of a house at 4 Deelside, The Quay, Askeaton, were woken by banging and a car outside. Noreen Dooley and Danny Harty said they saw O’Connor with a gun, heard shots, and saw him enter the house. The prosecution said the car later returned and its driver was identified as O’Connor’s brother, Daniel, who was a co-accused and changed his plea during the trial. Harty is O’Connor’s first cousin.
In its opening, the prosecution told the jury that Harty had a child with Joanne O’Connor, O’Connor’s sister, and that there had been bad feeling between the parties. Defence counsel objected that the suggested motive was speculative and sought to have the jury discharged. The trial judge refused, saying the proposed evidence added context. When the issue arose again during Dooley’s evidence, the judge allowed questioning about incidents involving Jimmy O’Connor, another brother who was not charged in the case.
The Court of Appeal said the presence or absence of motive could be considered by the jury as circumstantial evidence in a case where identity was disputed. It held that the proposed evidence was not inadmissible and that preventing the witnesses from explaining the relationship between the people involved would be artificial and unfair. The court also noted that the witnesses were well acquainted with those they said they recognised.
The appeal court was not persuaded that the trial was unsatisfactory or that the verdict was unsafe. It therefore dismissed the appeal. The judgment did not alter the trial court’s convictions or sentence.