Conviction for ‘slurry pit’ killing upheld

A mother-of-four has failed in her appeal against her conviction and 10-year sentence for killing an English new age traveller and submerging his body in a slurry pit.

The Court of Criminal Appeal found it was “by no means convinced” that the conviction of Una Geaney, aged 47, for the “astonishing and ghoulish” manslaughter of Gary Bull in West Cork six years ago was either unsafe or unsatisfactory.

In Jul 2011, Geaney was jailed for 10 years by Mr Justice Paul Carney after she was found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Gary Bull on Sept 23, 2007.

Her co-accused Amanda McNabb, aged 28, and Jason Thomas, aged 41, were each jailed for nine years at the Central Criminal Court after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

The appeal court also dismissed an appeal brought by McNabb against her nine-year sentence.

The trial heard that Gary Bull, aged 37, died after suffering a number of “furious blows” at the Dunmanway, Co Cork, farmhouse rented by Geaney and McNabb. His badly beaten body was found by gardaí weeks later dumped in a slurry pit on a farm attached to the house.

The jury found Geaney was part of a common design to attack Mr Bull.

Ciaran O’Loughlin, counsel for Geaney, submitted that the trial judge erred in his charge to the jury on the issue of withdrawal from a joint enterprise.

Mr O’Loughlin said that on her own account Geaney was present when Mr Bull was attacked and said she hit him on the leg with a wooden mallet but later “definitely withdrew” from the scene.

He said it was not sufficient for the trial judge to tell the jury that Geaney would be no longer be part of a joint enterprise if she withdrew from it, and he instead should have told them the onus was on the prosecution to prove Geaney was still part of a joint enterprise when the fatal blows were struck.

He said Mr Justice Carney should also have given the jury instances from case law of withdrawal and abandonment and pointed to elements in Geaney’s case which might amount to abandonment.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said the case was an “astonishing and ghoulish” one.

He said the trial judge made it perfectly clear the guilt of a person in a joint venture was always dependent on a finding that the person had not withdrawn from that joint venture.

Mr Justice Hardiman said the trial judge’s charge was at all times “perfectly comprehensible and perfectly adequate” and he made it “perfectly clear” to the jury the onus of proof was on the prosecution at all times.

With regard to the sentence appeals, he said both Geaney and McNabb were guilty of the manslaughter of a man in the most appalling circumstances.

Mr Justice Hardiman said that none of the points of appeal against sentence raised by the applicants were of “any substance” and that there was no error in principle which would warrant the court’s interference. The appeal court then dismissed both sentence appeals.