The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed Anthony O’Reilly’s application for leave to appeal his murder conviction, ruling that expert evidence suggesting the death could have been accidental did not make the prosecution case so contradictory that the charge should have been withdrawn from the jury.
O’Reilly had been found guilty after a 16-day trial of murdering Daniel McDonald, dangerous driving causing his death, and reckless endangerment. He sought leave to appeal only against the murder conviction. His argument was that Garda Edward Daven’s evidence about vehicle speed and the bend in the road conflicted with the prosecution case and meant the jury should not have been allowed to decide the murder charge.
The appeal court reviewed evidence that O’Reilly and McDonald had argued outside a nightclub in Arklow on 1 February 2007. The judgment recounts that O’Reilly later drove through the area at high speed and struck McDonald, who died. Witnesses gave evidence that O’Reilly had threatened McDonald and deliberately swerved towards him. O’Reilly did not testify at trial; two defence experts said an accident was possible. The court also considered O’Reilly’s unsworn statement to gardaí, in which he said he did not mean to hit McDonald and could not stop as he drove around a bend.
Daven’s calculations placed the car’s average speed at about 74 kilometres per hour, with one estimate of up to 84 kilometres per hour. He said video footage indicated a speed of about 80 kilometres per hour, and that there was no apparent braking before impact. In cross-examination, he accepted that centrifugal force and driver error could potentially contribute to a car moving across a bend. The appeal court described that alternative as hypothetical and said Daven was not an eyewitness.
At trial, the judge refused to withdraw the murder charge, saying there was evidence on which the jury could find that O’Reilly intended to kill or cause serious injury. The appeal court agreed. It said ordinary inconsistencies and competing interpretations of evidence are generally for the jury; expert evidence does not receive special weight and does not replace the jury’s role. The court found that Daven’s acceptance of a possible accident did not undermine the prosecution case to the point that it lost reason and common sense.
The court dismissed the application for leave to appeal. It did not determine a full appeal of the murder conviction. The dangerous-driving and reckless-endangerment convictions were not challenged in this application.