The Court of Appeal has dismissed Anthony Buck’s second application seeking to establish a miscarriage of justice in his convictions for murder and robbery, ruling that it raised no new or newly discovered facts under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993.
In a judgment delivered on 23 February 2018, the court granted a motion by the Director of Public Prosecutions to dismiss the application. It concluded that the material did not pass the first stage of the statutory test: identifying a new or newly discovered fact. The court did not proceed to assess the weight or credibility of proposed evidence, and did not quash or otherwise alter the convictions.
Buck was convicted in the Central Criminal Court in 1998 of murdering David Nugent in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, on the night of 8 July and into the morning of 9 July 1996. He also received a 12-year sentence for robbery and a life sentence for murder. His appeal was dismissed in 1999. The Supreme Court dismissed a further appeal in 2002.
Buck’s first application under section 2 was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in December 2015. The Supreme Court refused leave to appeal that decision in January 2017. His second application, amended to set out 13 grounds, challenged aspects of the trial and Garda investigation, including his legal representation, the handling of interviews and custody records, forensic sampling, and alleged inconsistencies in witness and Garda evidence.
The DPP argued that the material was not new within the meaning of the law and that dissatisfaction with advice from Buck’s legal team could not support a second application. The Court of Appeal agreed. It said several documents and issues had been available at trial or during earlier proceedings, while other matters had been known to Buck by the time of his first section 2 application.
The court also said allegations that interview notes had been deliberately altered lacked supporting evidence. It found no basis for treating the challenged trial evidence or the legal team’s alleged failure to appreciate its significance as newly discovered facts. The court described the application as further argument based on material that existed at trial or could have been discovered then.
The ruling concerned the threshold for bringing a second miscarriage of justice application. The court held that Buck’s application failed to meet it and allowed the DPP’s motion to dismiss.