The Court of Appeal has dismissed Christopher McNamara’s appeal against his conviction for the 2011 murder of James Boyce, finding that the trial judge’s directions to the jury were satisfactory in the circumstances.
McNamara was convicted after a 10-day Central Criminal Court trial on 24 January 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The appeal, heard by Birmingham, Mahon and Edwards JJ., focused on the judge’s charge to the jury and his handling of requests made by counsel after the charge. A separate ground alleging that the verdict was perverse and against the weight of the evidence was not pursued in written or oral submissions.
At trial, the defence accepted that McNamara was responsible for an unlawful killing but argued that the prosecution had not proved the intention required for murder beyond reasonable doubt. It sought a manslaughter verdict. The prosecution case was that the killing occurred during a robbery and that the injuries, the absence of a call for help and other evidence supported a murder verdict.
The appeal challenged the judge’s failure to define manslaughter or explain its ingredients. The Court of Appeal acknowledged that the judge dealt briefly with the legal issues and did not define the alternative offence. But it considered the charge as a whole and noted that all parties agreed the jury faced two possible verdicts: murder or manslaughter. The judge had accurately explained the legal test for murder, including the prosecution’s burden to prove the required intent beyond reasonable doubt.
The court concluded that directing the jury to focus on whether the prosecution had proved the ingredients of murder equipped it to consider manslaughter as the alternative if that burden was not met. It rejected the criticisms of the charge and was not persuaded that the verdict was unsafe or the trial unsatisfactory. The appeal was dismissed; the court did not conduct a new trial or alter the conviction or sentence.