The Court of Appeal has dismissed appeals by Wayne Dundon and Nathan Killeen against their convictions for the murder of Roy Collins, finding that neither conviction was unsafe and that neither trial was unsatisfactory.
The Special Criminal Court convicted both men on 15 July 2014. The prosecution case was that Killeen drove James Dillon to and from the murder scene, while Dundon directed the shooting from prison. The prosecution did not allege that either appellant fired the fatal shot. Dillon had pleaded guilty to murder earlier.
Dundon challenged the trial court’s reliance on prison witness Anthony “Noddy” McCarthy, who said he overheard Dundon directing the murder. The appeal court acknowledged substantial challenges to McCarthy’s evidence and said another fact-finder might have reached a different conclusion. But it held that the Special Criminal Court had warned itself about the danger of relying on his uncorroborated evidence and was entitled to accept it. The appeal court also rejected the argument that alleged flaws in the Garda investigation required the case to be stopped.
Killeen challenged, among other matters, the trial court’s reasons, its treatment of civilian witnesses and its findings on forensic evidence. The appeal court said the trial court was entitled to find that firearm residue and DNA evidence supported the prosecution case. It noted that the trial judgment had misstated part of the questioning about clothes left at Lisa Collins’s home, but found the error of no great significance to the central point: Collins’s evidence that Killeen left clothes there on the day of the murder.
The appeal court also upheld the trial court’s approach to witness evidence. It said the Special Criminal Court had subjected Lisa Collins and Christopher McCarthy to particular scrutiny and had warned itself about relying on certain civilian evidence without corroboration. It rejected Killeen’s remaining grounds after considering the written submissions.
The Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals. The convictions therefore remained in place.