Mark Nash opened appeal over Grangegorman murder conviction

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Mark Nash opened an appeal in the Court of Appeal against his conviction for the murders of Sylvia Sheils, 59, and Mary Callanan, 61, in Grangegorman, Dublin. The proceedings were reported on 6 November 2017.

Nash had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to murdering the women between 6 and 7 March 1997. A jury found him unanimously guilty after deliberating for just over four hours. Mr Justice Carroll Moran imposed the mandatory life sentence on 20 April 2015.

The report said Nash had already been serving life since October 1998 for murdering two people in Ballintober, Castlerea, Co Roscommon. A woman had also been seriously injured in the August 1997 incident.

Nash’s lead counsel, Hugh Hartnett SC, said another man, Dean Lyons, had confessed to the Grangegorman murders in custody and to other people, and that his admissions were allegedly corroborated by evidence from the scene. Hartnett said Nash later made admissions, but there were inconsistencies between his account and what was found at the scene.

The report said a jacket seized from Nash’s house initially yielded nothing of probative value and had no evidence of blood staining. Hartnett said DNA was later found around its button threads, but it could not be determined whether the material was blood, hair or a skin cell. He said the DPP decided to prosecute on that basis.

The appeal continued before a three-judge Court of Appeal.