Court overturns man’s conviction for armed robbery

A man’s conviction for armed robbery of a Cork post office has been overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

There is not to be a retrial of Michael O’Callaghan, aged 48, who was jailed for 10 years for the Mar 2009 robbery of Blackpool Post Office in Cork when €20,000 was taken by two masked raiders, the court also said.

Mr O’Callaghan, with an address at Ardcullen, Hollyhill, Cork, will now be freed from Portlaoise Prison.

He had appealed his conviction in Cork Circuit Court in Feb 2011 arguing the trial judge erred by admitting evidence to the jury which he should not have. He claimed the judge should have withdrawn the case from the jury and that its verdict was perverse.

Yesterday, Mr Justice John Murray, on behalf of the three-judge appeal court, agreed the case should not have gone to the jury on the basis of the evidence, in particular in relation to the crucial DNA evidence carried out on a balaclava which the prosecution alleged Mr O’Callaghan had been wearing during the robbery.

The trial heard the balaclava was homemade, having been cut out from a jumper sleeve, and that forensic examination showed at least three people had been in contact with it.

There was nothing in the forensic evidence which would entitle the jury to differentiate between various people who had been in contact at some point with the balaclava, the appeal court said.

The court also ruled that the failure of the accused to truthfully account for his movements that day to gardaí was not a basis for inferring on its own that Mr O’Callaghan was one of the two robbers. He had not told gardaí he had been at the post office earlier on the day of the robbery to collect his social welfare, the trial was told.

The witness evidence of a man who saw the two raiders running from the post office and one removing his balaclava did not identify or otherwise directly link Mr O’Call-aghan to the crime, the court said.

Mr Justice Murray said that, in view of the court’s decision, the question of a retrial did not arise.