Farmer jailed for killing Traveller in freedom bid

A farmer jailed for six years for shooting dead a Traveller on his land today made a bid for freedom.

Padraig Nally, who was last year sentenced for the manslaughter of father-of-eleven, John ’Frog’ Ward was present in the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal to seek leave to appeal his conviction and sentence.

In July 2005, a jury found the 61-year-old of Funshinaugh, Cross, Co Mayo, not guilty of the murder of Mr Ward.

Defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC said he was seeking to appeal against Mr Nally’s conviction of manslaughter on a single very important constitutional point.

Mr Nally’s legal team queried the trial judge’s decision to refuse to allow the jury to consider a verdict of not guilty when an unlawful killing had not been admitted or conceded by the defence.

Emphasising the key point of his argument, he said: “Whether or not there are any circumstances in which a trial judge can advise a jury they must convict, in an absence of any concession by the defence.”

Mr Grehan said the jury must always be given the option of acquittal unless the defence had agreed it was an unlawful killing.

“In my submission the judge explicitly told the jury there was only two verdicts, murder or manslaughter and they could not acquit the accused,” he said.

Mr Grehan also said the judge refused to allow a full defence argument of self-defence to be raised in the trial, which could have seen Mr Nally walk free.

Mr Nally, who sat on a bench to the side of the court, was accompanied by his sister, and a small number of friends. The farmer who entered the court handcuffed, sat quietly during the hearing wearing a suit and a dark check open-necked shirt.

During the trial last year, the jury heard 42-year-old Mr Ward had been shot twice and beaten 20 times with a stick.

The second and fatal shot was fired after Mr Ward, from Carrowbrowne Halting Site, on the outskirts of Galway city, had left the farmyard in October 2004 and was limping down the road.

During his trial Mr Nally told the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar he had never intended to kill the Traveller. He said in the 18-months before the shooting there were two break-ins at his property and he was growing increasingly fearful.