Nally conviction quashed - Retrial set to open up old wounds

THE landmark decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash the manslaughter conviction of Mayo farmer Padraig Nally and order his retrial for the fatal shooting of Traveller John “Frog” Ward will inevitably recall the bitter divisions that erupted between settled and Travelling communities during the murder trial.

Far-reaching implications flow from this case, which gripped the nation and goes to the heart of public debate on the controversial question of self defence.

At the centre of the issue is the degree of force a person is entitled to use in order to defend one’s life or property against attack.

Few matters have caused deeper tensions between the Travelling and settled communities than the circumstances surrounding Mr Ward’s killing in the autumn of 2004. After entering Mr Nally’s farmyard, he was shot twice and beaten with a stick.

Last summer, Mr Nally, a 62-year-old farmer, was jailed for six years for shooting Mr Ward, a 42-year-old father of 11 children.

In sentencing, Mr Justice Paul Carney said the case had divided the country and was the most difficult he had dealt with in more than 14 years on the bench. Emotions ran so high that supporters of Mr Nally had to be swayed to call off a protest march.

Invariably, Travellers tend to be blamed for violent attacks on elderly people and in many instances have been found guilty of such assaults.

Nevertheless, elderly people have also been attacked by thugs from the settled community. That lends weight to yesterday’s call by Martin Collins, a spokesman for Pavely Point, the Traveller centre, for people on both sides to conduct themselves in a responsible manner during the retrial.

Expressing the hope that it would not add to the bitterness, Mr Collins pointed out the main players will now have to relive the horrors of the case once more.

Though reluctant to apportion blame, Mayo Deputy Michael Ring was at pains to underline the plight of elderly people in remote parts of rural Ireland who lived in terror of being attacked.

The central question before the three appeal judges was whether the jury should have had the option of returning a verdict of not guilty.

Counsel for Mr Nally argued that because jurors were told they could only bring in a verdict of either guilty of murder or guilty of manslaughter, his client had been left at a disadvantage.

Effectively, Judge Carney was accused of not allowing the jury consider a defence of self-defence and of not allowing them to bring in an acquittal. In the event, the judge told the jury they could not find the defendant guilty of murder and so had to find him guilty of manslaughter.

In quashing the manslaughter conviction, the appeal judges found the jury should have had the opportunity to return a verdict of not guilty, an option that they were denied.

Significantly, they argued that they should have been afforded that possibility even if such a verdict flew in the face of the evidence and however inappropriate Judge Carney might have considered such an outcome to be.

The Nally and Ward families have already suffered deeply. As Martin Collins succinctly put it, there are no winners in this case.

It is regrettable, but unavoidable, that deep wounds will be re-opened in the course of the retrial which is expected to go ahead early next year.

Ultimately, the power to decide matters of guilt or innocence must lie with juries and that makes it imperative to have a retrial in the Nally case, which promises to convulse the nation yet again.