The new legal term begins in the State’s courts on Monday, January 12th, with a number of high-profile cases set to be heard in the coming weeks.
An appeal by Stephen Silver over his conviction for the murder of Garda Colm Horkan in Co Mayo is among the high-profile cases before the courts in the new law term.
A separate appeal by Noel Long against his conviction for murdering vulnerable Cork woman Nora Sheehan more than 40 years ago is also set for hearing.
On the opening day of the legal term, a woman faces a sentencing hearing at the Central Criminal Court for the murder of her partner’s four-year-old son.
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The child, who was living with his father and the woman at the time of his death in 2021, was taken to hospital after his father called an ambulance, saying the boy had fallen from a bunk bed. His injuries included 17 areas of bruising, two black eyes and injuries to his brain and liver.
State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers said the brain injuries were consistent with someone shaking the child and forcefully striking his head against a hard object like a wall or floor. The liver injuries were consistent with direct trauma such as a punch or kick to the abdomen, she said.
Media organisations, including The Irish Times, will apply on January 12th to have lifted an order restraining the woman’s identification, imposed to protect a child witness.
Kevin Lunney kidnapping appeals
In the Court of Appeal, judgment is due on January 13th on appeals by three men against their convictions in connection with the kidnapping and torture of former Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney, who was abducted from his Co Fermanagh home.
Alan Harte (43) of Island Quay apartments, Alan Ó Brien (43) of Shelmalier Road and Darren Redmond (30) of Caledon Road, all in East Wall, Dublin 3, were convicted at the nonjury Special Criminal Court in late 2022 of false imprisonment and intentionally causing harm to Lunney at a yard at Drumbreade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan, on September 17th, 2019.
Harte, who inflicted most of Lunney’s serious injuries, including knife wounds to his face and torso, was jailed for 30 years; O’Brien for 25 years and Redmond for an effective 15 years.
Sentencing on murders committed by minors
The Court of Appeal is expected to decide this term whether or not to impose life sentences in separate cases of two young men who were teenagers when they committed murders.
Both were separately sentenced to life in prison with a review after 13 years. They must be resentenced after the Supreme Court ruled during 2025 the sentencing court does not have the power to review detention of a child convicted of murder.
Children should only be sentenced to life in prison in exceptional circumstances where their intentions and actions can fairly be equated with those of an adult, the court said.
One case involves a man who was aged 14 when he stabbed Urantsetseg Tserendorj (49) in the neck in Dublin’s north inner city on January 20th, 2021, after attempting to rob her of money to buy drugs. The knife grazed a main artery in Ms Tserendorj’s neck and she died in hospital nine days later.
In the second case the accused was aged 17 when he murdered 20-year-old Cameron Blair in Cork in January 2020. Mr Blair was stabbed by the boy after allowing him and two others into a student house party.
At the Central Criminal Court, a hearing is due to resume on January 19th to determine the fitness of Riad Bouchaker to stand trial on charges of assaulting a care worker and attempting to murder three children at Parnell Square in Dublin on the afternoon of November 23rd, 2023.
The 51-year-old, of no fixed abode, is also charged with three counts of assault causing harm to two other young children and a passerby, who had intervened to assist, as well as one count of the production of a knife.
Bouchaker’s lawyers have argued he is suffering from a mental disorder and is unfit to stand trial. A consultant forensic psychiatrist said the accused man, who has a complex medical history, had suffered a brain injury “in the course of members of the public intervening” on the day of the alleged offence and had surgery on his brain some years before.
Revenue appeal
In the Supreme Court, a Dublin landlord, Paul Howard, and his partner Una McClean, of Larkfield Avenue, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6W, have appeals for hearing in January over judgments obtained against them by the Revenue Commissioners.
The High Court granted judgment for €2.4 million against Mr Howard, and for €625,513 against Ms McClean, in tax and interest.
The core issue in the appeals is the legality of a clause concerning remuneration structure in a January 2020 contract between the Revenue and solicitors Ivor Fitzpatrick & Company, one of six firms on a panel retained by Revenue for collection of unpaid taxes.
The couple argued the clause amounted to a contingency fee arrangement that provided the solicitors’ remuneration was only paid if sums allegedly due to the Collector General were realised. The clause was deleted under an amendment agreement made on February 14th, 2023, between Revenue and the firm.
Mr Howard and Ms McClean argue the agreement between Revenue and the law firm amounted to champerty.
Champerty is an offence, on foot of public policy against encouraging litigation, arising where a third party with no interest in the litigation gives assistance to a party in return for a share in the proceeds of the litigation.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the couple’s appeal because of “a lack of clarity” in relation to champerty issues.
Busy High Court
The High Court faces a busy term across its many lists, including the planning and environment division where 35 cases are fixed for hearing.
The cases include a challenge by Dublin Airport operator DAA, for hearing on January 29th, to Fingal County Council’s enforcement of the 32 million passenger cap at Dublin Airport as a matter of planning law.
In February the Court of Appeal is due to hear an appeal by a double killer, Stephen Penrose (42) of Newtown Court, Malahide Road, Coolock, Dublin, against his December 2021 conviction of the murder of his friend Philip Finnegan at Rahin Woods, Co Kildare, on August 10th, 2016. The trial heard Penrose stabbed Mr Finnegan (24) in a violent frenzy and the young man’s decapitated remains were found in a shallow grave in the woods.
Penrose was previously convicted of the manslaughter of David Sharkey, whom he stabbed 13 times in Co Meath in 2009, and was released in 2016.
Noel Long appeal
Noel Long’s appeal against his conviction for the murder of Cork woman Nora Sheehan in June 1981, the oldest murder prosecution in the State, is also listed for hearing in February.
A former British Army soldier, Long (74), with an address at Maulbawn, Passage West, Co Cork, had denied murdering 54-year-old Mrs Sheehan between June 6th and June 12th, 1981, at an unknown place within the State.
The vulnerable mother of three’s naked and bruised body was found at Shippool Woods in Cork six days after she went missing. Long (74) was previously convicted in 1972 for sexual offending and has multiple previous convictions for assault.
An appeal by Stephen Silver (48), from Aughaward, Foxford, is due to be heard on March 19th against his April 2023 conviction of the murder of Garda Colm Horkan at Castlerea, Co Roscommon, on June 17th, 2020.
Silver, who was jailed for 40 years, had admitted manslaughter but denied murder. He shot Mr Horkan 11 times with the officer’s own gun. He said he believed Horkan, who was not in uniform at the time, was “a heavy” down from Dublin who was trying to kill him.
Silver had suffered from bipolar affective disorder and the main issue in the trial was his state of mind at the time of the killing.
