The Court of Appeal has dismissed Garrett O’Brien’s appeal against convictions for the murder of Seamus O’Byrne and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. The court rejected all four grounds and left the convictions and sentences undisturbed.
O’Brien was convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court in November 2012 after a retrial; an earlier trial in 2011 had ended with a jury disagreement. He received life imprisonment for murder and a ten-year sentence for the firearm offence. The offences took place on 13 March 2009 in Tallaght, where O’Byrne was shot dead outside his home. O’Byrne’s partner, Sharon Rattigan, was shot in the leg as she tried to intervene and then struggled with the gunman, taking the gun from him.
The prosecution alleged that O’Brien took part in a joint enterprise with Gary Flynn and that O’Brien was the gunman. Its evidence included a mobile phone belonging to O’Brien, found at the scene with his DNA on it, and CCTV that prosecutors said showed him buying a Red Bull can also found there. O’Brien said he had lost or had the phone stolen before the killing. The defence argued that Flynn was the killer and O’Brien had no involvement or knowledge of the crime. These were competing cases at trial, not findings made by the appeal court.
O’Brien challenged the lawfulness of his arrest at his sister’s house in Bray, the trial judge’s directions to the jury about the possibility that Flynn was the gunman, the admission of phone records, and the absence of a more detailed verdict identifying his role. The appeal court held that the arresting garda had entered to make an arrest under section 6 of the Criminal Law Act 1997. It also found there had been no detention before the formal arrest and that O’Brien was a visitor, not a resident of the house. It dismissed the challenge to the jury directions, finding the judge had made clear that the prosecution case was that O’Brien was a knowing participant in a murder plan and the gunman.
The court also upheld the trial judge’s decision to allow evidence from a consultant engineer who extracted phone data under a contract between his employer and the service provider. The final ground failed because the jury was not required to explain its verdict. The appeal court dismissed the appeal in full.