Kearney appeals murder conviction

BRIAN KEARNEY has lodged an appeal against his conviction for the murder of his wife at their family home in south Dublin two years ago.

The Courts Service confirmed yesterday that lawyers representing the 51-year-old electrical contractor lodged appeal papers with the Court of Criminal Appeal over the Easter holidays, within the 21-day deadline from the date of his conviction.

Kearney was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Siobhan, 38, at their home at Carnroe, Knocknashee, Goatstown, on February 28, 2006, following a 13-day trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The father of two had pleaded not guilty but was convicted, by an 11-1 majority verdict, by a jury of eight women and four men.

The prosecution claimed that Kearney strangled his wife by using the flex of a vacuum cleaner as a ligature before trying to hoist her with the cable over the en-suite door of their bedroom to make her death look like suicide. Although her body was found in a locked upstairs bedroom of their upmarket home, gardaí became suspicious almost immediately. The couple’s three-year-old son, Daniel, was also in the house at the time of the murder.

During the trial, it emerged that Siobhan was seeking a legal separation from her husband in the days before her death after their four-year-old marriage had broken down. Although the convicted murderer has a personal fortune estimated at €4.6m, a Garda financial expert gave evidence that he was overstretched in his borrowings as a result of a number of investments, including the couple’s purchase of a hotel in Mallorca for €2.2m in 2002.

Gardaí believe he was motivated to kill his wife over fears of losing his wealth in a costly divorce battle.

As yet no grounds of appeal have been lodged, but it is expected that Kearney’s legal team will argue that the murder charge should have not been put to the jury as the prosecution’s case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

They are likely to claim that the conviction is unsafe as there was insufficient proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict Kearney of his wife’s murder.

Due to a large backlog of cases, it is unlikely that the Court of Criminal Appeal will hear Kearney’s application for at least six months.