Wayne Dundon and Nathan Killeen appeal murder convictions

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

Wayne Dundon and Nathan Killeen opened appeals against their convictions for the murder of Roy Collins in Limerick. The proceedings were reported on 3 April 2017.

Both men had pleaded not guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to murdering Collins at Coin Castle Amusements, Roxboro, on 9 April 2009. Collins died in hospital shortly after he was shot.

After a 29-day trial, the three-judge court found both men guilty and imposed mandatory life sentences. Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley presided. The court found that Dundon had ordered the murder from prison and Killeen was the getaway driver for gunman James Dillon.

Opening Dundon’s appeal on 3 April, his barrister Remy Farrell SC argued that the judgment failed to analyse controversies in the case or address specific inconsistencies in prosecution witnesses’ accounts. He said there was evidence of collusion between Anthony “Noddy” McCarthy and other witnesses, and argued that the court did not explain how it resolved the controversies before relying on McCarthy’s uncorroborated testimony.

Farrell also challenged the court’s treatment of prosecution witnesses as not being accomplices in law. He said the defence had sought a direction to find Dundon not guilty, including on the basis of a lack of a proper Garda investigation, but the court had not dealt with that latter application.

For the Director of Public Prosecutions, Michael O’Higgins SC said the case was based on McCarthy hearing Dundon threaten Dillon and command him over a phone. O’Higgins said the court had summarised the witness testimony and was entitled to believe McCarthy. Submissions were to continue before Mr Justice George Birmingham, Mr Justice Alan Mahon and Mr Justice John Edwards.