Philip Dunbar’s CCTV appeal grounds rejected in murder case

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

The Court of Appeal rejected Philip Dunbar’s challenge to CCTV evidence used in his murder trial in a judgment delivered on 30 January 2024. Dunbar had been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Adam ‘Floater’ Muldoon.

A unanimous jury found Dunbar guilty of murder at the Central Criminal Court before Mr Justice Paul McDermott.

Dunbar was 17 when he stabbed Mr Muldoon, a 23-year-old homeless man with a disability, 183 times in an unprovoked attack at Butler Park, Jobstown, Tallaght, on 22 or 23 June 2018.

At the appeal, Dunbar argued that the use of CCTV breached his rights. Mr Justice John Edwards said the court found no breach of his rights under the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights or the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. He described the challenge as misconceived and dismissed the grounds concerning CCTV.

In earlier appeal proceedings, defence counsel Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC argued that the jury should have been allowed to consider diminished responsibility arising from chronic drug use. Counsel said the trial judge had refused to let that defence go before the jury. He also said two expert psychiatric witnesses called in legal argument had both said Dunbar did not have an underlying mental disorder when he committed the murder.