Daniel Murtagh, murderer of Nadine Lott, withdraws conviction appeal

Murtagh beat his former partner to the point where she was 'completely unrecognisable', leaving her with 'extreme and grotesque' injuries

Daniel Murtagh was given a life sentence in October 2021 for the murder of his former partner.

Daniel Murtagh, who beat his former partner Nadine Lott to the point where she was "completely unrecognisable", leaving her with "extreme and grotesque" injuries from which she never recovered, has withdrawn his bid to overturn his murder conviction.

Murtagh's case was listed for a two-hour hearing at the three-judge court Court of Appeal but his barrister, Michael Bowman, applied for leave to withdraw the conviction appeal, which presiding judge Mr Justice John Edwards said the court would grant.

Murtagh, who was 34 when he was sentenced in October 2021 to the mandatory life sentence for the murder of his former partner, Ms Lott, in Arklow, Co Wicklow, in December 2019, did not appear at the Court of Appeal today and was not required to do so.

No submissions of any grounds of appeal were opened at the brief hearing this morning.

Murtagh had pleaded not guilty to Ms Lott’s murder but was found guilty by a unanimous jury who deliberated at the Central Criminal Court over two days before Mr Justice Michael MacGrath.

Nadine Lott was murdered in Arklow, Co Wicklow, in December 2019.

The trial heard that Murtagh had beaten Ms Lott, 30, so badly that she was “completely unrecognisable” and left her with “grotesque” injuries from which she never recovered. The jury rejected Murtagh’s defence that he was too intoxicated to have formed the intent to murder Ms Lott.

His counsel had sought a manslaughter verdict in the case, arguing that the “bloodbath” would never have happened “but for the drink and drugs” Murtagh had consumed on the night.

The accused told gardaí that before assaulting Ms Lott he smoked a joint, took two pills, and drank a shoulder of Captain Morgan rum straight. He also said he had been on methadone for the previous three months.

Accused's intoxication

Mr Justice Michael MacGrath had told the jury to decide whether the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt “that despite the accused’s intoxication he had formed the intent to kill or cause serious injury to Nadine”.

Instead, the jury accepted the State’s case that Ms Lott’s death was a case of murder and “nothing short of murder”.

John O’Kelly, prosecuting, argued there was no defence of intoxication and that Murtagh had the “clearest intent” when he inflicted the “most dreadful blunt trauma injuries” to the beauty therapist.

Just look at what the accused didn’t do and what he never tried to do, he never raised a hand to get Nadine any kind of help.

Murtagh, of Melrose Grove, Bawnogue, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Ms Lott at her apartment in St Mary’s Court, Arklow. 

The attack happened on December 14, 2019. Ms Lott never regained consciousness and died on December 17, 2019, in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.