The Court of Criminal Appeal has refused an application by Conor Gamble to introduce new or additional evidence and denied him leave to appeal his conviction for criminal damage.
The judgment, delivered by Finnegan J. on 6 March 2009, concerned damage to three mushroom tunnels at St. Johnston, Co. Donegal, on 12 October 1996. Gamble was convicted on 15 July 1999 and sentenced to three years in prison, a term the court said had long since been served. He had pleaded guilty to a separate criminal damage count and not guilty to the count at issue in the appeal.
At trial, the prosecution relied in part on a signed statement in which Gamble admitted going to the tunnels with Trevor Peoples and said Peoples slashed them. Gamble later told Superintendent Gallagher that the statement was lies and alleged it had been made under pressure from Detective Sergeant John White and a Garda. White denied bullying; Garda Patrick Mulligan also denied it. The judgment said Gamble did not give evidence at trial, no challenge to the statement’s admissibility was made, and no hearing was sought to determine whether it could be admitted.
The appeal application sought to rely on reports of the Morris Tribunal and evidence that other people had allegedly been bullied into making statements. The court said the alleged improper means had not been pursued as an issue at trial, although Gamble and his legal advisers knew of his allegation before then. It found no explanation for why the point had not been raised by competent lawyers at trial and declined to let the appeal become a retrial. It also ruled that proposed evidence of admissions by Gerard Peoples was hearsay and inadmissible.
The court then considered leave to appeal the conviction. No submissions were made in support of the first two stated grounds, including the challenge to the weight of the evidence and the trial judge’s treatment of a statement by Gerard Peoples. Given the evidence before the jury and the decision not to pursue the admissibility issue at trial, the court refused leave to appeal. It did not quash the conviction.