Criminal Court decides date for Nally retrial

THE retrial of Co Mayo farmer Padraig Nally for the killing of John Ward has been set for December.

Mr Nally, aged 62, and from Funshinagh Cross, Claremorris, was in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday to hear the decision.

Earlier this month, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction for the manslaughter of John Ward on October 14, 2004 and ordered a retrial.

Mr Nally was sentenced to six years in prison in November 2005 for shooting dead Mr Ward on his land. The jury in the case found the bachelor farmer not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

Mr Ward, a Traveller and 42-year-old father of 11 children, was shot twice and beaten with a stick.

The Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the jury at Mr Nally’s trial should have been allowed to consider the possibility of self-defence and that it was a matter for the jury to decide whether the force used by Mr Nally was reasonable or whether to acquit him.

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

Judge Carney said it would have been “perverse” to allow the jury to consider the farmer had acted in self-defence, given evidence that the victim had received a fatal gunshot wound while retreating away from Mr Nally’s property.

The Central Criminal Court yesterday fixed the retrial for December 4.

The trial judge will decide whether the case will be heard in Co Mayo, where the original trial was conducted, or in Dublin.

While it is unusual for the Central Criminal Court to sit outside Dublin, it can do so, particularly since the refurbishment of many regional court houses.

After the decision by the appeal court, a leading Traveller support group called for the retrial to be held in Dublin.

Pavee Point expressed concerns about the ability of a jury from Mayo to hear the case objectively.

The organisation is concerned the retrial will reopen divisions between the Traveller and the settled community.

Judge Carney described the case as the “most socially divisive” over which he had presided.