A man has had his conviction overturned for conspiring to burgle in relation to a car used in a 2013 robbery where a garda was killed.
Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe was murdered during the Lordship Credit Union robbery in Bellurgan, Co Louth, on January 25 2013.
The keys to a Volkswagen Passat, which was involved in the robbery, were stolen from a house in Clogherhead in Co Louth and used to take the car.
James Flynn, 34, with an address at Ravens Glen in Newry, was convicted of conspiracy to burgle with others and sentenced to eight years in prison in late 2023.
On Monday, the Court of Appeal in Dublin overturned his conviction at the Special Criminal Court.
This was due to “a very unusual occurrence” where the count before Flynn was amended without any opportunity for him to make submissions in response, the court of appeal said.
Flynn’s legal team had argued that the court had “erred” and had “no jurisdiction” to amend the indictment.
The grounds for the appeal stated the amended indictment was made “without notice to any party and without any party being given the opportunity of making submissions and was thus unfair and contrary to principles of fair procedures”.
“The appellant in this case, possibly uniquely in Irish criminal history, was convicted on a count never put to him, a count never before mentioned in the course of this trial until he had been convicted of it, and a count upon which he was never given any opportunity whatsoever to make any submissions at all.”
In a judgment by the Court of Appeal issued on Monday, the three-judge panel said the “peculiar” features of a trial in the non-jury Special Criminal Court is that the court acts as both a decider of law and trier of fact.
“Accordingly, having determined that it was not satisfied to the requisite standard of the appellant’s guilt on the wider conspiracy charge, the trial court narrowed the particulars of the conspiracy to burgle charge to what it was satisfied had been established to the requisite standard.”
But it said the appellant had no chance to make any legal argument against the altered count.
“Indeed, as an appeal court, we are unusually being incited to determine legal issues which were never argued before the lower court.”
It concluded that the appellant’s right to constitutional and natural justice was breached.
The Court of Appeal quashed Flynn’s conviction for conspiracy to burgle and said it would hear further submissions on ordering a retrial.
Peter Corrigan, of Phoenix Law, said: “We welcome today’s ruling by the Court of Appeal quashing the conviction of James Flynn.
“We had serious concerns around our client’s fair trial and constitutional rights and we welcome the conviction being set aside.”