40-year-old conviction ruled a miscarriage of justice

A man’s conviction for killing his 19-year-old neighbour over four decades ago was a miscarriage of justice, the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled.

Martin Conmey’s conviction for the manslaughter of Una Lynskey was quashed in 2010.

Yesterday, the Court of Criminal Appeal found the conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Outside the Four Courts, the Meath man said he was “delighted” his name had been cleared.

The 63-year-old said he had a very difficult life accused of a crime he was totally innocent of.

Mr Comney’s lawyers will now lodge an application for compensation.

Initial witness statements that were key to Mr Conmey’s defence were suppressed by “a person unknown but connected to the prosecution,” the court observed as it handed down its decision. A surviving witness had also alleged he was pressurised by gardaí to make an altered statement.

Mr Conmey served a three year sentence following the 1972 conviction.

Yesterday, the Court of Criminal Appeal declared the conviction amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

The court said it seemed obvious there had been “a grave defect in the administration of justice brought about by the members of the State”.

Mr Conmey, from Ratoath, Co Meath, embraced friends and family following the ruling.

After getting off a bus from Dublin, Ms Lynskey, a civil servant, disappeared less than half-a-mile from her home on Porterstown Lane in Ratoath, Co Meath, on October 12, 1971. Her body was discovered two months later in the Dublin mountains.

Mr Conmey and his friend Dick Donnelly were convicted of Ms Lynskey’s manslaughter in July 1972. A third man, Martin Kerrigan, who was also suspected of having been involved in Ms Lynskey’s death, was abducted and killed by Ms Lynskey’s brothers, Sean and James Lynskey, and her cousin John Gaughan, nine days after her body was found. Mr Donnelly won his appeal in 1973.