Supreme Court refuses permission to appeal  conviction for murder of 90-year-old Waterford farmer

Ross Outram was sentenced to life in prison for murdering Paddy Lyons, who was found to have suffered multiple blows to his head and neck from a blunt weapon and had fractures in his hip joint, jaw bone and ribs, the court heard

Ross Outram was found guilty in 2019 by a Central Criminal Court jury of murdering 90-year-old Paddy Lyons at Loughleagh, Ballysaggart, Lismore, Co Waterford. File picture

The Supreme Court has refused to grant permission to a man to appeal his conviction for the murder of a 90-year-old Co Waterford farmer in 2017.

Ross Outram was found guilty in 2019 by a Central Criminal Court jury of murdering 90-year-old Paddy Lyons at Loughleagh, Ballysaggart, Lismore, Co Waterford, at an unknown time between February 23 and 26 in 2017. The retired farmer, who lived alone and suffered a number of health conditions, had been discovered beaten to death in his own home.

Three Supreme Court judges, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley and Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, found Outram’s application did not meet the constitutional criteria needed for leave to appeal to the highest court to be granted.

Outram was sentenced to life in prison for murdering Mr Lyons, who was found to have suffered multiple blows to his head and neck from a blunt weapon and had fractures in his hip joint, jaw bone and ribs, the court heard.

Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said the cause of the man’s death was blunt force trauma to his body with a traumatic brain injury and shock due to fractures of his hip joint, jawbone and ribs.

Outram, of Ferryland, Waterford Road, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, lost his appeal against his conviction in the Court of Appeal in July. He argued there was no proof he caused the injury that led to the pensioner’s death.

Paddy Lyons suffered multiple blows to his head and neck from a blunt weapon and had fractures in his hip joint, jaw bone and ribs.

His counsel had argued there was no basis for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the hip fracture was caused by the assault and not by an accidental fall after Outram had left the scene, the judges said.

Before the Supreme Court, Outram questioned if, on the evidence in the case, the chain of causation was broken “notwithstanding that the injuries sustained during the assault contributed in a more than minimal way to the death”, the judges noted.

Also among his arguments was whether a trial judge has the discretion to permit a forensic examination after the jury has begun deliberating, they said. During deliberations, the jury had returned to ask if there had been blood on Mr Lyons' hat. The item had not been forensically tested, and the trial judge refused a defence application to have it tested at that stage.

Mr Lyons' hat was forensically examined after the conviction and light blood staining had been found on it. Outram sought to have this admitted as new evidence in the appeal, but permission for this was not granted.

The Supreme Court determined that Outram had not advanced “any viable argument” to suggest the trial judge had erred in his charge to the jury in relation to causation or that the Court of Appeal had erred in its findings on that issue. The court sees no grounds, the judges said, to find the trial judge should have gone further than he did in instructing the jury to acquit if they were in doubt as to whether the effects of the assault were related to any subsequent fall.