The Court of Appeal has dismissed Kenneth Collopy’s appeal against his murder conviction for the 2009 shooting of Daniel Fitzgerald in Ballysimon, Co Limerick. The court held that the trial judge was entitled to admit a video-recorded witness statement and that the jury’s guilty verdict was supported by the evidence presented at trial.
Collopy was convicted after a nine-day Central Criminal Court trial in March 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He admitted unlawfully killing Fitzgerald but denied murder. His case was that he intended to fire at a mobile home in retaliation for an earlier incident involving his mother’s home, and did not intend to shoot anyone.
Fitzgerald was shot outside his uncle’s mobile home on 8 December 2009. The judgment records that about 17 rounds were fired towards the home and that two struck Fitzgerald, who died soon afterwards.
One appeal ground concerned a video-recorded statement made to gardaí by David Bussoli. At trial, Bussoli said he could not remember the events. The trial judge admitted his earlier statement under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 after considering evidence from gardaí, medical material and the recording. The Court of Appeal found the judge had properly considered whether the statement was voluntary and reliable, and dismissed this ground.
Collopy also argued that Bussoli and Christopher Mulqueen should have been treated as accomplices and that the jury should have been warned to approach their evidence with caution. The appeal court said there was little to suggest either man had actively planned or carried out the attack; it considered the trial judge entitled to conclude they were not accomplices. The judge had cautioned the jury about Bussoli’s evidence because the defence had not been able to cross-examine him meaningfully.
The court rejected a further challenge to the directions on intent and recklessness. The trial judge had told jurors that murder required an intention to kill or cause serious injury, and that recklessness alone would amount to manslaughter. The appeal court considered the directions comprehensive.
Finally, the court said the evidence could support the jury’s finding that Collopy intended to kill or cause serious injury, rather than recklessly firing at the mobile home. It dismissed the appeal, leaving the murder conviction and life sentence in place.