Manslaughter charge quashed as appeal judge orders retrial

THE Court of Criminal Appeal has quashed the manslaughter conviction of Co Mayo farmer Padraig Nally and ordered a retrial.

Mr Nally was jailed for six years last November for shooting dead a Traveller on his land in 2004.

The appeal court ruled that the jury at Mr Nally’s trial should have been allowed to consider the full defence of self-defence and that it was a matter for the jury to decide whether the force used by Mr Nally was reasonable and whether to return an acquittal.

His counsel Brendan Grehan had submitted in the appeal earlier this year that the trial judge Mr Justice Paul Carney had erred in law by not allowing the jury to consider a full defence of self-defence and by not allowing them to bring in an acquittal.

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

In July last year, a jury found the 62-year-old, of Funshinaugh Cross, Claremorris, Co Mayo, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

John “Frog” Ward, a 42-year-old Traveller and father of 11 children, had been shot twice and beaten with a stick.

At the trial, Mr Nally 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 his life was under threat.

Mr Grehan submitted during the appeal that the single point of appeal against Mr 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.

In their 18-page judgment the three judges at the appeal court said that Mr Nally’s defence at the trial had been one of self-defence.

The appeal court held that “quite clearly, the issue of self defence was a central issue at every stage of this case” and that “the jurors must retain the ultimate power to determine issues of guilty or innocence” and to “question whether the amount of force used is objectively reasonable”.

Mr Nally has been admitted to bail on the same terms as before his trial pending the retrial, which is expected to take place early next year.