The Court of Appeal has dismissed appeals by Dylan Hayes and Gerard Hogan against their convictions for murdering Shane Murphy, concluding that the trial was not unsatisfactory and neither verdict was unsafe.
The men were convicted after a three-week Central Criminal Court trial on 17 May 2017. They had been charged over Murphy’s killing at 1, The Grove, Pallasgreen, on 30 April 2015. The appeal judgment, delivered on 9 November 2020, records that both men challenged the convictions on common grounds, while Hogan also advanced additional grounds.
The prosecution case at trial was that Hayes and Hogan attacked Murphy during an altercation, using a knife and screwdriver. Witnesses described two phases of attack, while forensic evidence included Murphy’s blood on the knife and on the screwdriver. The appeal court noted that Hayes admitted stabbing Murphy at trial and relied on loss of control. Hogan accepted involvement in an assault but disputed stabbing him.
Both appellants argued that the trial judge mishandled the partial defence of provocation. The appeal court said the jury had been told to assess each accused’s state of mind subjectively and found the directions adequate in the circumstances. It also rejected their challenge to the use of parts of Graham Kelly’s Garda statement under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. Kelly had said in court that he could not remember some details; the appeal court held that the trial judge had been entitled to find material inconsistencies and admit the relevant statement evidence.
Hogan’s additional grounds included challenges to the joint trial, the admission of Jodie Byrnes’s statement, the trial judge’s summary of evidence about a knife, and directions on words allegedly encouraging the attack, withdrawal from a joint enterprise, voice identification and manslaughter. The Court of Appeal rejected those grounds. On withdrawal, it agreed there was insufficient evidence to require a jury direction. It also said the case did not involve voice identification, though jurors still had to consider carefully what words were spoken, who spoke them and their meaning.
The court dismissed both appeals. It did not order a retrial or alter the convictions.