The Court of Appeal has dismissed Darren Wynne’s appeal against his murder conviction, finding no reason to conclude that the jury failed to follow the trial judge’s directions after two co-accused pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Wynne was convicted by a unanimous jury on 10 July 2014, after a 17-day trial. His appeal centred on the trial judge’s refusal to discharge the jury when Quentin Monaghan and James Seery changed their pleas during the trial. The appeal judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Birmingham on 30 January 2017.
The three men had initially offered to plead guilty to manslaughter, but the prosecution rejected the offers. Monaghan and Seery entered acceptable manslaughter pleas on 2 July 2014, after the jury had heard interview records from the accused. Wynne’s counsel sought to discharge the jury the following day.
The prosecution case, as outlined at trial, was that Wynne shot Jamie Lindsay at close range at Coneyboro Estate, Athy, on 6 April 2013. Wynne admitted shooting Lindsay in interviews but said he had acted in self-defence and later maintained he had not intended to kill him. At trial, the central issues were whether the prosecution had proved the mental element for murder and whether it had disproved provocation.
Wynne argued on appeal that the prosecution had accepted the co-accused’s pleas only after their interview records had been read to the jury, amounting to misconduct or an ambush. The Court of Appeal said that allegation was unsupported by evidence. It noted the prosecution’s denial that the interviews were read with knowledge a plea would be accepted, and that Monaghan’s counsel had cross-examined the detective who read the records.
The court also found that the jury had been clearly directed not to consider what Monaghan or Seery said in interview as evidence against Wynne. It saw no indication that jurors could not or did not follow that direction. The court said there was no request for separate trials and concluded that the trial was not unfair and the verdict was not unsafe.
The appeal was dismissed. The court’s decision addressed the challenge to the conduct of the joint trial and the jury direction; it did not retry the murder charge.