The Court of Appeal has allowed Marian Lingurar Junior to bring a late appeal against his nine-year sentence for the manslaughter of Oughterard publican John Kenny, while refusing to reopen his conviction.
Mr Kenny was killed during a burglary at Kenny's Public House in Oughterard, Co Galway, on 25 September 2011. He was found tied with wire and lying face down in a toilet, with injuries consistent with assault or rough handling.
Lingurar was 16 years and nine months old at the time. He was later sent forward for trial but left Ireland after obtaining Romanian travel documents in breach of his bail. He was arrested after returning to the State and was identified in April 2018 while attempting to collect social welfare under a false identity.
A jury convicted him of manslaughter on 31 January 2019. He was sentenced on 8 May 2019 to nine years' imprisonment, with a burglary charge taken into consideration.
In seeking extra time to appeal, Lingurar relied on challenges concerning mobile-phone records and Garda interviews. The Court of Appeal accepted that he had wanted to appeal immediately after conviction and that the subsequent delay in lodging a proper appeal was not his fault.
However, because the case had already been exceptionally prolonged, partly by Lingurar's earlier flight from Ireland, the court required a strong prospect of success before permitting a late conviction appeal. It was not persuaded that the telephone-data or interview arguments met that threshold.
The judges reached a different conclusion on sentence. They said Lingurar's age at the time of the offence, together with the prosecution case that he acted alongside older men from his community including his father, raised a point of substance about whether nine years was unduly severe.
Allowing a sentence appeal would also avoid the prospect of a retrial and the further burden that could place on Mr Kenny's family. Time was therefore extended for the sentence appeal only.