The Court of Appeal has dismissed Conor Metcalfe’s appeal against his conviction for membership of the IRA, finding that the Special Criminal Court was entitled to rely on a senior Garda officer’s belief evidence and inferences drawn from his answers during questioning.
Metcalfe was convicted by the Special Criminal Court on 19 December 2018 after a five-day trial. He had been charged with membership of the IRA in the State on 24 November 2015 and received a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence. His appeal raised eight grounds, including challenges to the materiality of questions asked in Garda interviews, the weight given to a chief superintendent’s evidence, the treatment of privilege claims and the sentence.
The prosecution case included evidence that Metcalfe drove a stolen van from Glasnevin to Tallaght in June 2014 after being seen with Kenneth Donoghue, who had previously been convicted of IRA membership. Two days later, Gardaí found the van with two men, a firearm, ammunition and disguises. The court also considered evidence of Metcalfe’s associations with people later convicted of IRA membership and a fingerprint match linking him to a note about cigarette deliveries found at the home of David Murray, who was also later convicted of membership.
The Special Criminal Court had found that questions put to Metcalfe during two interviews were highly material to the investigation. It drew adverse inferences from his failures to answer some questions and from answers it found false or misleading. On appeal, Metcalfe argued that the questions did not meet the test of materiality and that the inferences could not properly support the chief superintendent’s belief evidence.
The Court of Appeal rejected that challenge. It said the questions about the van, its movements and Metcalfe’s associations were plainly material. It also held that the trial court was entitled to rely on the chief superintendent’s evidence despite his claim of privilege over the material behind his belief. The defence had not challenged the privilege claim or asked the trial court to review the material, the appeal judgment said.
The appeal court concluded that the inferences from the interview responses were cogent and independent of the chief superintendent’s belief evidence. It found no basis to conclude that the trial was unfair or the conviction unsafe, and dismissed the appeal. The judgment does not set out a separate decision on the sentence ground.