The Court of Appeal has quashed Zachary Coughlan Ryan’s convictions for two counts of false imprisonment after finding that a jury should have been discharged when it heard he had previously been in prison.
The court held that the disclosure created a significant risk of prejudice, despite the trial judge’s directions telling jurors to disregard it. The appeal was allowed on that ground alone. The court did not decide the appellant’s other grounds of appeal and said it would hear submissions on whether to order a retrial.
The convictions followed a 14-day trial and a unanimous jury verdict at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court in October 2013. Ryan received concurrent sentences of eight years and three months in January 2014, to be served consecutively to a two-year sentence imposed in a separate case by Castlebar Circuit Court.
The prosecution case was that, overnight on 19–20 August 2012, two men were held at an address in Castletroy, County Limerick, by three men including Ryan. The men’s hands were tied and they were gagged. They were taken to a derelict house near Ballyclough, where one was released. The other was taken to a field at Donoughmore, from which he escaped. The prosecution said the purpose was to hold him for ransom to facilitate a robbery of a post office where his mother worked.
The appeal concerned evidence from Tara Troy, who said she first met Ryan when he “got out of jail the last time”. The trial judge refused defence applications to discharge the jury, saying the answer had not been invited and that Troy had been called at the defence’s request. He directed the jury to ignore the remark and consider the case as if Ryan were a person of good character. He later added that any prison time could have been for relatively minor matters.
The Court of Appeal said those reasons did not address the likely prejudice: the evidence had been heard by the jury regardless of who called the witness or whether the answer was invited. The reference suggested Ryan had been imprisoned more than once. It came late in a lengthy trial, shortly before the jury considered its verdict, and the nature of the charges could lead jurors to assume the prior sentences were for serious offences.
The court concluded that the risk could not be sufficiently countered by the judge’s directions. It quashed the convictions, but made no decision on a retrial at this stage.