Nally awaits outcome on appeal for manslaughter

THE Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved its judgment in the appeal of Co Mayo farmer Padraig Nally who was jailed for six years for shooting dead a Traveller on his land in 2004.

Nally’s counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, submitted to the court that the trial judge Mr Justice Paul Carney had erred in law by not allowing the jury to consider a defence of self defence and by not allowing them to bring in an acquittal.

At the trial Mr Justice Paul Carney told the jury they could only bring in a verdict of either guilty of murder or manslaughter.

Nally was sentenced to six years in jail for the manslaughter of John ‘Frog’ Ward, a father of 11, in October.

A jury had found the 62-year-old, of Funshinaugh, Cross, Co Mayo, not guilty of murder.

Mr Ward, aged 42, had been shot twice and beaten with a stick. The second and fatal shot was fired after Mr Ward, from Carrowbrowne Halting Site, on the outskirts of Galway city, had left the farmyard and was limping down the road.

During his trial, Nally told the Central Criminal Court that he never intended to kill Mr Ward.

In his defence, he told the jury in the 18 months before the shooting there were two break-ins at his property and he was growing increasingly paranoid and fearful and believed that his life was under threat.

Mr Grehan submitted yesterday that the single point of appeal against Nally’s conviction was a very important constitutional point.

He said that was whether or not there are any circumstances in which a trial judge can ever direct a jury that they must convict in the absence of a concession by the defence that acquittal was not an option in the case. He said that in this case the trial judge had done so at the request of the prosecution.

He said that in England where there is a defence of self defence, the jury is asked to put themselves into the shoes of the accused and if they find that the forced used is reasonable, they must acquit.

Mr Grehan said that self defence, if it is raised, is a matter for the jury to decide and the trial judge may not interfere with this.

Counsel for the DPP, Paul O’Higgins SC, submitted that acquittal did not arise in the circumstances of the Nally case.

He said that it was not what force the jury considered to be reasonable but what force a reasonable man would have considered necessary in the circumstances.

He said the very furthest that Nally could go was that after severely beating Mr Ward, he saw him walk or stagger away during which time Nally went back into his shed, then walked down the road after the retreating Mr Ward and then shot him intentionally, killing him.

Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, presiding at the three judge appeal court, said the court would reserve its judgment.

It is expected to deliver the judgment some time after the new law term begins in October.