Court overturns woman’s cold case murder conviction

The Court of Criminal Appeal has overturned the country’s first successful cold case murder conviction.

The three-judge court found prejudicial evidence used to “blacken” the name of Vera McGrath, aged 64, was heard at her trial and had the effect of rendering it unsafe and unsatisfactory. Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said the court would quash the conviction and direct a retrial of Mrs McGrath, who was jailed for life in Jul 2010 having been found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of murdering Bernard McGrath, aged 43.

She had denied murdering her husband in Lower Coole, Westmeath, between Mar 10 and Apr 18, 1987.

Counsel for the applicant, Patrick Gageby, submitted that a “hatchet job” had been done on her by co-accused Colin Pinder, of Liverpool, who was jailed for nine years in Dec 2010 after he was acquitted of murder but convicted Mr McGrath’s manslaughter.

He said the court heard prejudicial evidence from a witness who allegedly saw the applicant crushing up tablets and putting them in Mr McGrath’s tea before dressing him in tights and calling a doctor to say the deceased had “gone mad”.

Mr Gageby said the trial judge had “grossly underestimated” the danger of an unfair trial on the basis of this “unhelpful pejorative material”, and had there been separate trials for both defendants his client would not have to “deal with” the material which had rubbished her credibility.

Pinder had admitted participating in the killing but alleged he had done so at Mrs McGrath’s instigation.

Mr Justice Hardiman said the court was of the opinion that there was “considerable conceptual difficulty” in a case posited and advanced as one of joint enterprise but where only one defendant was guilty of murder.

“The court is not happy it can be said that the conviction was either a safe or a satisfactory one,” Mr Justice Hardiman said. He said the court would quash the conviction though he noted this did not mean the prosecution would proceed with a retrial.