European court to rule on murder appeal conviction
The European Court of Human Rights will issue its ruling in Strasbourg, in a legal challenge brought by Matthew O’Donnell, 35, over his claims that the trial judge’s handling of the case prevented him from getting a fair hearing.
The man is serving a life sentence in Magahaberry Prison for the murder of 30-year-old Noel Williamson in Co Tyrone in 2004.
Mr Williamson was stabbed and beaten to death before his body was found on an isolated pathway near the village of Caledon outside Dungannon.
During the trial, witnesses gave evidence O’Donnell spent most of the day before the murder drinking with his victim and another man, Samuel Houston, who subsequently admitted to the killing and was convicted of manslaughter.
At the time of the killing, O’Donnell was living under the assumed name of John O’Connor in Caledon.
However, he returned to live in the Republic where he was subsequently arrested and questioned before being extradited to the North.
In the European Court of Human Rights case, O’Donnell is claiming that, under Article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, he was denied his right to a fair trial because the judge did not allow a clinical psychologist to share his observations about videotaped interviews conducted by gardaí with O’Donnell.
The case was told that O’Donnell’s IQ placed him among the bottom 1% of the population. His understanding of spoken English is equivalent to a six-year-old.
A clinical psychologist was allowed to give evidence about O’Donnell’s vulnerability and the difficulties he would have faced if he had testified. But the psychologist was not allowed tell the jury about the conclusions he had drawn about garda taped interviews as they had been excluded from evidence at the request of the defence.
His lawyers had also asked the trial judge to rule that it was undesirable for O’Donnell to give evidence because of his mental condition.
However, the judge refused stating he could manage the process in such a way that no unfairness would result and that he would tell the jury that they could draw an adverse inference if he did not give evidence — another reason why O’Donnell’s lawyer maintain he was denied his rights to a fair trial.
In 2003, O’Donnell was convicted of desecrating graves in Ballyduff, Co Kerry.
O’Donnell, originally from Castlemaine, was one of three men found guilty of a crime which Judge Caroll Moran described as “an affront to any sense of dignity which exists in Ireland” — breaking open coffins with accomplices to rob jewellery. He was handed down a two-year suspended term for his role in the drink and drug-fuelled rampage in Ratheela cemetery.
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