Supreme Court refuses Outram permission to appeal murder conviction

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

The Supreme Court refused Ross Outram permission to appeal his conviction for murdering 90-year-old farmer Paddy Lyons. The judges found his application did not meet the constitutional criteria for leave to appeal. Outram had been sentenced to life in prison, and the Court of Appeal dismissed his conviction appeal in July 2021.

Outram argued that the evidence did not prove he caused the hip fracture that contributed to Lyons’s death, and questioned whether the trial judge should have allowed a forensic examination of Lyons’s hat during jury deliberations. The Supreme Court found no viable argument that the trial judge or Court of Appeal had erred on causation, and saw no basis to require further jury directions about whether the assault’s effects were connected to a later fall.