O’Reilly to seek dismissal appeal

Joe O’Reilly is to seek permission from the Supreme Court to appeal an unsuccessful attempt to have his conviction declared a miscarriage of justice.

In July 2007, O’Reilly was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury and sentenced to life in jail for the murder of his wife at their home in the Naul, Co Dublin. Rachel O’Reilly’s badly beaten body was found in the bedroom of her home by her mother on October 4, 2004, and in the intervening period, O’Reilly had appeared as a guest on the topic of her death on The Late Late Show.

O’Reilly lost an appeal against his murder conviction and last year an application to have his conviction declared a miscarriage of justice was dismissed as an “abuse of process” by the Court of Appeal.

His lawyers returned to the Court of Appeal yesterday to seek legal aid for a Supreme Court action.

Barrister Ronan Munro BL, for O’Reilly, applied for legal aid to pursue an application to the Supreme Court for leave to appeal the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of his earlier miscarriage of justice application.

However, Mr Justice George Birmingham, who oversees the procedural management of cases through the court on his own, said three judges would have to convene to deal with the matter.

Mr Munro attempted to advocate against the court’s view that the same three judges had to decide on a legal aid application. However, Mr Justice Birmingham said “it would be different if this was routine, but it isn’t”, as he listed the matter for July 23.