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.

At the in 2001 trial, Dr Louise McKenna of the State Forensic Science Laboratory, said that fibres were found on the jumper McDonagh wore that night, which matched Ms Hynes’s jacket and jumper. Fibres from Ms Hynes’s clothing were also found in McDonagh’s Ford Mondeo car.

Dr McKenna said that the fibres lent “very strong support to the proposition that Siobhan was in contact with McDonagh’s jumper and strong support for her being in his car”.

The presiding Judge of the CCA Mr Justice Geoghegan said that court could only allow new scientific evidence in “extraordinary circumstances”.

It would have to be shown, for example that experiments were flawed, or had been fraudulent, before any new evidence could be accepted.

“This was not such a case,” the judge said, adding, “the matter cannot be reopened now”.

The appeal, which before Justice Geoghegan, Justice Roderick Murphy and Justice Daniel Herbert, continues next week.