The Court of Appeal has dismissed Graham McEvoy’s appeal against his conviction for murdering Paul Curran, ruling that evidence explaining the phrase “got a stripe” was admissible and did not make the trial unfair.
The appeal concerned evidence from a witness identified as C.R., who told the Central Criminal Court that McEvoy had called her on the day Curran died and said he nearly got a stripe down his face “over Paulie”. She did not know what the phrase meant. During the trial, a Garda officer, English, gave evidence that he understood it to mean a cut or slice across the face that leaves a scar.
McEvoy argued that the prosecution had not laid a sufficient foundation for the officer to explain the phrase. He said the evidence was used to suggest a motive for the killing that was otherwise absent from the case, and that its use in the prosecution’s closing speech made the trial unfair and the conviction unsafe.
The Court of Appeal said C.R.’s evidence about the conversation was relevant and admissible. It found that the officer’s evidence went no further than explaining the phrase in the context in which it was used. The court described it as admissible non-expert opinion evidence, while observing that an explanation might not have been necessary because a jury could have understood the phrase without one.
The judges said the prosecution could draw together evidence in its closing speech, and that it was not a surprise that the conversation would be relied on. The jury was entitled to assess the conversation and the explanation and decide what significance, if any, to give them. The court concluded that the trial judge’s ruling was reasonable and correct, identified no error of principle, and found no basis to consider the trial unsatisfactory or the conviction unsafe.
McEvoy had been convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court on 18 December 2017 of murder and received the mandatory life sentence the following day. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal.