The Supreme Court ruled that a 999 call made shortly after a fatal stabbing was admissible as evidence under the res gestae exception to the hearsay rule, even though the witness later became hostile and uncertain in her evidence. The supplied extract does not state the Court’s formal order disposing of the appeal.
In a judgment delivered on 28 July 2023, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said he agreed with the analysis in the principal judgment of Mr Justice Woulfe. The appeal concerned the admission at trial of a recording of the call as evidence of what the caller said. The trial judge had admitted it under the res gestae exception, allowing the jury to consider the call as proof of the statement.
The judgment recounts that the killing took place at a flat in Tallaght on 18 February 2017. A young woman present called 999 and said the accused had stabbed Graham McKeever. She gave a substantially similar account in garda interviews over two days. At the December 2018 murder trial, however, her proposed statement did not align with her evidence. After a voir dire, the trial judge permitted the prosecution to treat her as a hostile witness.
The call was not played to her while she was giving evidence. It was later proved through the emergency call operator and played to the jury. When its contents were put to her in court, she agreed that the accused had stabbed the victim and that only one knife was involved. Charleton J noted that her agreement was reluctant and equivocal. The accused had told gardaí he had been attacked; the trial judge allowed the jury to consider self-defence and provocation. The jury convicted him of murder.
Charleton J described hearsay as an out-of-court statement offered to prove the facts it asserts, generally inadmissible unless an exception applies. He said res gestae permits a spontaneous statement closely connected with an event to be admitted for its truth where the speaker was so emotionally caught up in the event that the possibility of calculated deceit was diminished. The trial judge assesses admissibility; the jury decides the weight of the evidence.
The judgment says the trial judge correctly admitted the recording under that exception. The extract ends with the Court’s explanation of the rule and does not include a separate formal order or a complete account of the other judgments.