The Court of Appeal has dismissed Noel Smith’s appeal against his conviction for harassment, making unwarranted demands for money with menaces and money laundering, ruling that the conviction was safe.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Birmingham on 30 May 2016, dealt with the conviction appeal only. Smith had been convicted on 18 February 2014 and sentenced on 7 April 2015 to nine years’ imprisonment, with three years suspended. The appeal against sentence was not addressed in this judgment.
The prosecution case was that Stephen Mora Kelly had incurred a drugs debt to Smith, and that money was paid by members of the Kelly family in 2008 and 2009. Prosecutors said Geraldine Kelly, Stephen’s mother, came under pressure from Smith to pay more money in 2009 while her son was attending a rehabilitation centre. The seven-count indictment included allegations of threatening telephone calls to Geraldine Kelly and two money-laundering counts. These were allegations considered in the criminal proceedings, not findings newly made by the appeal court.
Smith challenged, among other matters, the admission of his police interviews, telephone records and Bebo records, as well as evidence about other alleged misconduct and the trial judge’s directions to the jury. The Court of Appeal rejected those grounds. It upheld the trial judge’s conclusions that police had gone to Smith’s home with the intention both to search and arrest him, and that the telephone records had been compiled in the mobile operator’s ordinary business for billing customers. It also found there was no evidence that the Bebo records had been interfered with.
The appeal court did find that a statement by witness Janice Seery to gardaí had been wrongly admitted under section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. The court described the application to admit it as misconceived, but said the issue was peripheral and had no impact on the trial’s overall fairness. It also declined to second-guess the trial judge’s decision not to give a separate direction about witnesses who had admitted lying.
The court concluded that the trial was satisfactory and the conviction safe, and dismissed the appeal against conviction.