The Court of Appeal has rejected all grounds advanced by Alan Wilson and David Crowley to overturn their convictions for offences arising from an alleged burglary at a Dublin 15 home in June 2009. It then turned to Wilson’s separate appeal against the severity of his sentence, but the supplied judgment ends before that issue is decided.
Wilson was convicted of burglary and sentenced to seven years in prison. Crowley was convicted of burglary and possessing a shotgun in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable inference that it was not held for a lawful purpose. He received seven years for burglary and a concurrent eight-year sentence for the firearms offence.
The prosecution case, as described by the appeal court, relied in part on statements given to gardaí by Lisa Murray and her father Noel. Lisa Murray had said she saw both men enter her home and Crowley strike her boyfriend, David O’Brien, on the head with a meat cleaver. She said she later saw blood on his head and heard two shots as she went to her father’s nearby home. Noel Murray said he heard two loud bangs and later saw Crowley holding a shotgun. Both witnesses gave evidence at trial that differed from their earlier statements. O’Brien did not give a statement or take part in the trial.
The trial judge admitted the Murrays’ earlier statements under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. The Court of Appeal found the statutory conditions had been met and held that the trial judge was entitled to admit them. It also rejected challenges to the arrest, which followed a brief roadside conversation after gardaí stopped a silver Toyota Corolla, and to the jury’s continuation after Crowley lit a juror’s cigarette outside court. The trial judge had questioned the juror and the jury as a whole; they said the incident would not affect their decisions. The appeal court found no real risk of unfairness.
The judges also rejected arguments that the evidence did not establish an unlawful assault or entry as trespassers, and upheld the admission of evidence that Wilson was wearing a bullet-proof vest when stopped. They dismissed Wilson’s challenges concerning the injured party’s previous convictions and adverse inferences drawn during an interview. The convictions therefore remain in place. The excerpt records no decision on Wilson’s sentence appeal.