Hazel Stewart loses appeal against conviction for husband’s murder

Former Sunday school teacher Hazel Stewart has lost her appeal against being convicted of murdering her policeman husband.

Judges in Belfast rejected claims that Stewart's previously abandoned challenge to being found guilty of killing Trevor Buchanan should be annulled.

They also ruled there was no merit in all new arguments mounted in an effort to clear the 52-tear-olds name, including an alleged failure to properly direct the jury on her previous good character.

Lord Justice Gillen said the fresh grounds now put before the court were “without foundation”.

Stewart, who appeared by prison video-link, is serving a minimum 18-year jail sentence for the double killing of Constable Buchanan (32) and Lesley Howell (31), the wife of her ex-lover Colin Howell.

Both victims were found in a fume-filled garage in Castlerock, Co Derry back in May 1991. Police originally believed they had died in a suicide pact after discovering their partners were having an affair.

Howell (56) eventually pleaded guilty to the murders in 2010 and implicated Stewart in the plot but she has sought to have her convictions quashed.

In January 2013 her appeal against being convicted of Ms Howell’s murder was dismissed. At that stage she dropped her challenge to being found guilty of killing her first husband.

But her lawyers sought permission to resurrect the Buchanan appeal, claiming the abandonment should be annulled because she was allegedly not advised by previous legal representatives that it would amount to a dismissal.

It was contended that both Stewart and her husband were told there was no arguable appeal on the Buchanan murder. Her barrister also set out the grounds on which he argued the conviction should be overturned.

Even though Stewart made admissions in police interviews, the barrister insisted that elsewhere on the tapes she made clear her opposition to Howell’s murder plot.

By pleading not guilty and contesting the charges, despite giving no evidence at trial, a full direction on her previous good character should have been given to the jury, the Court of Appeal heard.

Lord Justice Gillen concluded there were no plausible reasons for holding that the abandonment of the appeal should be set aside. He said she had fully accepted the advice of previous counsel that an appeal for the Buchanan murder was groundless, with all avenues of investigation having been explored.

“She knew that the quest was finished,” he said.

The court also rejected contentions that the trial judge failed to properly warn the jury to look for more than just accomplice evidence from Howell of her guilt.

Stewart’s lawyers are continuing with separate attempts to have the Criminal Cases Review Commission refer her conviction for killing Ms Howell back to the Court of Appeal.