Robert O’Leary’s IRA membership conviction quashed

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

Robert O’Leary’s conviction for IRA membership was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 11 January 2022. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) did not oppose his appeal. The proceedings were reported on 11 January 2022.

O’Leary had pleaded not guilty to a single count of membership of an unlawful organisation. The three-judge Special Criminal Court convicted him of membership of a group styling itself as the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, at a location within the State on 20 August 2019. Mr Justice Tony Hunt sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment in October 2020.

At trial, the DPP claimed O’Leary had supplied a Skoda Octavia used by the New IRA when a bomb was placed under a PSNI officer’s Jeep at Shandon Park Golf Club in Belfast in June 2019.

O’Leary appealed on the basis that a newly discovered fact about the chief prosecution witness made the conviction unsafe. His lawyers said the witness’s criminal record had not been disclosed to the defence before trial. They argued that it would have affected his credibility and their approach to cross-examination.

Court of Appeal President Mr Justice George Birmingham, sitting with Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly, said the circumstances leading to the DPP’s decision not to oppose the appeal should be investigated. O’Leary was released on bail. The court was to decide later whether he should face a retrial.