Murder appeal will not take new evidence

THE Court of Criminal Appeal has rejected an application by Connemara man John “Demesne” McDonagh, aged 33, to have new evidence included as part of the appeal against his conviction for the murder and rape of schoolgirl Siobhan Hynes in 1998.

Six years ago, McDonagh, a builder’s labourer from The Demesne, Keeraunbeg, Carraroe, Co Galway, was sentenced to life in prison after he was found guilty of the rape and murder of Siobhan Hynes, then aged 17 years, of Sconse, Lettermore, Connemara at Tismeain beach in the townland of Keeraunbeg in the early hours of December 6, 1998.

At the Court of Criminal Appeal in Dublin yesterday, the presiding Judge Mr Justice High Geoghegan ruled out the inclusion of new evidence, including an independent scientific report which McDonagh’s lawyers said contradicted State forensic evidence that placed the deceased girl in his car, as part of the grounds of McDonagh’s appeal.