Court dismisses McManus appeal against conviction for killing teenager

The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed Sligo man Ronnie McManus's appeal against his conviction for the manslaughter of a 14-year-old girl.

Ronald McManus aka Ronald Dunbar (aged 45) denied murdering Melissa Mahon between September 14 and 30, 2006. However he was jailed for life by Mr Justice Barry White after being found guilty of her manslaughter by a Central Criminal Court jury following a 25-day trial in May 2009.

In his appeal, the Sligo man's lawyers contended that the conviction was unsafe and should be set aside on grounds including that original trial judge Mr Justice Barry White had shown evidence of bias against Dunbar. He calimed that he did not get a fair trial.

At the Four Courts this morning the three-judge court, comprised of Ms Justice Fidelma Macken presiding sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe said that none of the 11 grounds raised in the appeal revealed any errors in law by the trial judge and the conviction was safe.

Delivering the CCA's judgment Ms Justice Macken said that what was "very detailed" appeal "contained no grounds in which leave ought to be granted". On that basis the judge added the court was satisfied to dismiss the Sligo man's appeal against his conviction.

McManus, who has also lodged an appeal against the life sentence he received for killing Melissa, was not present in court this morning.

In his appeal McManus claimed that the conviction was manifestly unsatisfactory, and that the jury's verdict was perverse on grounds including that Mr Justice White had demonstrated bias when he instructed the jury to retire for the weekend on day 21 of the trial and get the bad taste of the case out of their mouths.

He further claimed that two key prosecution witnesses involved in the disposal of the body had given varying accounts of the death of Ms Mahon.

The judge, his legal team also argued, had been fundamentally wrong when he asserted that evidence given by one witness to having seen Dunbar manually strangle the victim, had been given under cross-examination, when in fact it had become apparent during re-examination.

The DPP in opposed the appeal argued that the conviction imposed was safe and should not be interfered with. It claimed that although there were differences between the two witnesses’ accounts, both girls had described how Ms Mahon was alive in the house with Dunbar and then, when she left, she was dead and wrapped in a sleeping bag.

McManus's trial at the central criminal court heard that he strangled the 14-year-old and dumped her body in a river in Co Sligo. Melissa had been in the care of the State, living voluntarily at a care home in Sligo.

The trial heard she had begun a relationship with Ronald McManus, who allowed her to hide from gardaí and social workers in a vacant house next door. It had also been claimed that before she went missing that she was pregnant

However Ms Justice Macken said evidence tendered that McManus had an inappropriate relationship with the young girl was deemed by Mr Justice White as not been established beyond a reasonable doubt.

A year and half after her disappearance Ronald McManus's teenage daughters told gardaí their father had strangled Melissa in his bedroom and dumped her body in the River Bonnet in Sligo in September 2006.

Her remains were found on the shores of Lough Gill in February 2008 after Mr McManus's daughters told gardaí that their father had killed the teenager.