Tadhg Butler murder trial ends with hung jury

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

A jury in Tadhg Butler’s murder trial failed to reach a verdict at the Central Criminal Court. After six hours of deliberations, the jury formally disagreed. Mr Justice Paul Butler discharged the jury on 19 April 2018.

Butler had pleaded not guilty to murdering Michael O’Dwyer. The charge concerned O’Dwyer’s stabbing at a party in Butler’s County Waterford home on 10 January 2014. O’Dwyer, 25, died in hospital hours later.

Butler testified that he accidentally stabbed O’Dwyer while trying to take a knife from his nephew to prevent him self-harming. His nephew, Anthony (Tony) O’Grady, had told gardaí that Butler walked over and stabbed O’Dwyer, but said in court that he could not remember what happened. He agreed that Butler had previously disarmed him to prevent self-harm and that it was a high possibility that this had happened that night too.

A previous jury found Butler guilty and he received a mandatory life sentence. The conviction was quashed on appeal. The Court of Appeal ruled that Butler had not understood that the jury needed to hear his account as sworn evidence in order to consider it.

Butler was remanded in custody until 8 May 2018, when his case was due to be mentioned before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy. The proceedings were reported on 20 April 2018.

Private localnews.ie summary: A Central Criminal Court jury failed to reach a verdict in Tadhg Butler’s murder retrial. He remained in custody pending a further mention on 8 May 2018.