Kearney lodges grounds for murder appeal

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

The reasons for the appeal by the jailed electrical contractor were lodged before the courts closed for the summer break.

It is expected a hearing on the appeal by the 51-year-old will not take place until early next year.

The Courts Service confirmed the grounds for the appeal had been lodged before the legal term ended.

Kearney strangled his wife with a vacuum cleaner flex at the family home in Goatstown, south Dublin, in February 2006. The killing was made to look like a suicide with the flex hung over the door of the en-suite bathroom.

It remains unknown on what grounds Kearney, who is serving a life sentence at Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison, is making his appeal and it is unlikely they will be made public until the hearing takes place in 2009.

Lawyers representing Kearney originally lodged appeal papers with the Court of Criminal Appeal in March within the 21-day deadline for applications from the date of his conviction.

The father of two lodged the actual grounds for the appeal more recently.

Kearney had pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife but was convicted, by an 11-1 majority verdict, by a jury of eight women and four men.

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 in the case 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 divorce battle.

Although no grounds of appeal have been lodged it is thought that Kearney’s legal team may argue that the murder charge should have not been put to the jury as the prosecution’s case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Lawyers are likely to claim that the conviction is unsafe as there was insufficient proof beyond reasonable doubt to convict Kearney of the murder.

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