THE COURT of Criminal Appeal has quashed a man’s murder conviction arising from his alleged involvement in driving another man who shot dead a father-of-two at a house party in Dublin almost four years ago. A retrial in the case of Bryan Ryan was ordered.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, presiding, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice John Edwards, ruled that Mr Ryan’s conviction was unsafe because of the failure of the trial judge to properly warn the jury concerning corroboration of evidence of a key prosecution witness who was in a witness protection programme.
Mr Ryan (26) was jailed for life in 2008 by Mr Justice Barry White at the Central Criminal Court after a majority jury verdict convicted him of the murder of Ian Tobin at Fortlawn Park, Blanchardstown, Dublin, on May 27th, 2007.
By a 10-2 majority, the jury found Mr Ryan had participated in a joint enterprise by driving a gunman to the scene of the murder on a stolen motorcycle and driving him away afterwards and burning the motorcycle.
Mr Tobin (25) died after being shot while attending a house party. The Director of Public Prosecutions claimed he was not the intended victim.
Mr Ryan, Sheepmore Crescent, Blanchardstown, had denied the charge and appealed against his conviction on grounds including the trial judge failed to give the jury proper warnings concerning the corroboration of the evidence of a protected witness, Kevin Whelan. The DPP argued the conviction was safe.
The Chief Justice said the trial judge had misdirected himself in law in deciding not to give a warning concerning corroboration of evidence of a protected witness in addition to a warning concerning evidence of an accomplice.
He said the Supreme Court, in a 2006 decision in proceedings involving convicted drug dealer John Gilligan, had ruled a jury should be given a warning and the reasons for that warning from a trial judge about acting on the evidence of a person in a witness protection programme.
The Supreme Court had decided the jury should be told about the desirability of corroboration of evidence of a witness in a protection programme because such a witness might be motivated in giving evidence by the benefits to be received from that programme.
In this case, while the trial judge warned the jury to exercise caution as regards Mr Whelan’s evidence on grounds he received benefits of the programme, he did not give the warning concerning corroboration as specified by the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice said.
This failure “fundamentally affected the manner in which the jury deliberated on the evidence” and meant the jury’s verdict “cannot be considered as safe”.