The Gazette 1981

OCTOBER 1981

GAZETTE

in connection with the upkeep of the flats and, at the time of the murder, the Appellant had been engaged by Mr. M. to paint and decorate, in his spare time, the house in which V.C. resided. The Appellant had stated that he went to the house where V.C. resided on a Sunday, to finish the work he had commenced and Mr. D. who accompanied him was to have assisted him in finishing the work. Following the arrival of the Gardai, the Appellant was asked to go to Irishtown Garda Station to make a statement which he duly did, giving a full and detailed account which was reduced to writing and signed. In his statement the Appellant said he had gone to the house the previous day, a Saturday, to do a small job in connection with the electric wiring. He said he later met Mr. D. and arranged for his help in finishing the work the following day. His statement then outlined how when they arrived at the house they discovered the dead body of V.C. At the trial the evidence was to the effect that when the Appellant made his statement and for a considerable time after, no one entertained the slightest suspicion that the Appellant had been in any way involved in the murder of V.C. The Appellant remained on in Irishtown Garda Station throughout Sunday night and right into the following (Monday) morning, being subjected, throughout, to successive bouts of questioning by different groups of gardai, and at no time being afforded an opportunity of sleeping or resting. Seven telephonic inquiries, from his wife, friends and family were made while he was there, and they were never communicated to him and those inquiring for him did not receive any reliable information as to what was happening to him. In the early hours of the Monday morning, he was again interviewed and questioned. At 10 a.m. he was transferred to the Donnybrook Garda Station where the questioning was resumed by other gardai. At 2 p.m. on the Monday afternoon a Garda entered the room where he was, the Appellant enquired whether he was the garda who had taken his fingerprints, and suddenly said: "I killed V.C. I did it with a bit of cable. 1 stabbed her with a knife from the kitchen table". The Appellant was then seen by an

Inspector and agreed to make a written statement. The Inspector suggested he should have some sleep. At about 6 p.m. on the Monday evening he was awakened, cautioned and he made a statment in which he confessed to the killing of V.C. on the previous Saturday. Another statement was relied upon by the prosecution. The Appellant said to his brother in answer to a question as to why he was not coming home, "Because I did it". This was in the presence of Gardai. There was some conflict of evidence as to whether he added "because I killed her". The Trial Judge stated that in his view no question of unlawful custody arose and having found that the statements were voluntary, he decided to admit them in evidence. In the Supreme Court, O'Higgins, C.J., and Walsh, J., considered the principles laid down in The People v. O'Brien [1965] I.R. 142, in relation to evidence, irregularly obtained. The first of these principles was that evidence obtained as a result of a deliberate and conscious violation of the Constitution should be excluded unless there was some "extraordinary excusing circumstance" which warranted its admission. The second principle was that in relation to evidence obtained by illegal means, short of a violation of Constitutional rights, the presiding Judge has a discretion to exclude same where it appeared to him that public policy, based on a balancing of public interest, required such exclusion. Held (per O'Higgins, CJ., with a concurring separate judgment by Walsh J., and a separate concurring judgment from Kenny J., with reservations) in allowing the appeal and quashing the conviction that:— (1) The fact that the Appellant was subjected for almost 22 hours to sustained questioning, never had an opportunity of communicating with his family or friends, and had never been permitted to rest or sleep until he made an admission of guilt, all amounted to such circumstances of harassment and oppression as to make it unjust and unfair to admit in evidence anything he said. (2) The Trial Judge, in exercising his discretion to admit the

Recent Irish Cases

CRIMINAL LAW Conviction for murder quashed because statements made by Appellant should not have been admitted by the Trial Judge. Jury should be asked to decide whether Appellant's evidence that he had been held against his wishes, as he described, was or was not true. The Appellant was tried in the Central Criminal Court before a Judge and Jury on the charge of having murdered Miss V.C. He was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude for life. He appealed directly to the Supreme Court in exercise of his right so to do by Article 34.4.3 of the Constitution which expressly provided that the Supreme Court, as the court of final appeal, should, with such exceptions and subject to such regulations as might be prescribed by law, have appellate jurisdiction from all decisions of the High Court; and that the Central Criminal Court was the name applied to the High Court when exercising its criminal jurisdiction in relation to the trial of offences, and a verdict, arrived at in that Court by a Jury on the trial of an indictable offence was a decision of that Court. The following were the relevant facts: The body of V.C., it had been stated, was found in her flat by the Appellant, and another man, who entered by means of a door key which was lawfully in the Appellant's possession. A knife was embedded in her chest and a scarf was tightly bound around her neck. On making the discovery, the Appellant phoned 999 and subsequently the Gardai and an ambulance arrived. It was stated that the Appellant lived in a block of flats which was owned by a Mr. M, a brother-in-law of V.C. Mr. M. employed the Appellant for odd jobs

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