Tipperary man loses murder appeal

A Tipperary man who is serving a life sentence for murdering his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend has today lost the appeal against his conviction at the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Alex Freiberg (aged 31), of Bridgewater House, Clonmel, was convicted by a jury in December 2008 of the murder of Cork man Kieran Cambridge in Clonmel in September 2007.

The 45-year-old was stabbed to death in the upstairs bedroom of the council house he had been sharing with Catherine Shanahan, who had recently broken off a relationship with Freiberg.

Ms Shanahan had a son whom Freiberg had become attached to and was very protective of, and on the day of the killing the two had had an “extremely heated argument” about the boy's welfare. Freiberg complained about drinking that was going on in the house.

Following this argument, there was an “extraordinary exchange” of text messages between the two, during which Freiberg said he was going to turn Ms Shanahan's home into “a war zone” and said: “It's going to be a night of hell for you and him.”

In sworn evidence, Ms Shanahan told the trial that Freiberg came into her house in the early hours of the morning through the back door which had been unlocked.

She said he threatened her with a knife held to her throat in the living room, and then ran upstairs to where Mr Cambridge was asleep in bed.

She heard shouting and after running into the bedroom saw that Mr Cambridge had been stabbed and was covered in blood. He died shortly afterwards.

In their appeal against the conviction, lawyers for Freiberg argued that there was “a failure to investigate the potential involvement of another or others in the crime” and also that gardaí had failed to produce any forensic evidence linking Freiberg to the killing.

They said the knife or knives used in the killing were never found, and that there was no fingerprint, DNA or other scientific evidence linking their client to the incident.

A partial footprint in blood had been found on the duvet of the bed where Mr Cambridge was stabbed. The print did not match Freibergs and his legal team argued that the gardaí did not carry out a sufficiently thorough investigation to exclude the possibility of another intruder.

But Mr Justice Fennelly presiding at the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal, said that it had not been established to any relevant degree that the Garda investigation was “incompetent or inadequate”.

Another ground for appeal Freiberg's lawyers put forward was that gardaí had conducted a “one-track investigation” as soon as Ms Shanahan had named their client as the culprit.

A number of neighbours were present in the house after Ms Shanahan raised the alarm and some of these went into the bedroom. The court acknowledged that this fact “raised the possibility of an alternative culprit”.

However, it found that all of these people had been questioned by gardaí, had explained their presence in the house and “no scintilla of suspicion was pointed at any of them”.

Mr Justice Fennelly also said the court was satisfied that the gardaí were entitled to treat Freiberg as the “principal suspect”.

He concluded that “none of the grounds of appeal had been made out” and dismissed the application.