Infamous ‘tiger kidnapper’ and gangland prison Paschal Kelly has opened an enchantment in opposition to his conviction and 18-year sentence for a €92,000 submit workplace theft, throughout which three girls have been tied up and kidnapped.
elly (56) was one in all a gang of three males who burst into the house of postmistress Susan Lawlor at Seabury Drive, Malahide, Dublin on September 25, 2014. He was sentenced to 18 years by Dublin Circuit Legal Courtroom in 2018.
The gang used cable ties to bind Ms Lawlor, her daughter and an Italian scholar who was staying on the residence. The ladies have been delivered to a subject, the place they have been held in a single day earlier than the gang drove them to Bayside Put up Workplace in Sutton, Dublin.
At one stage Kelly threatened to pour petrol over a automobile and burn them alive. The raiders finally left with the money.
Kelly, with addresses in Cootehill, Co Cavan, and Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, was convicted of trespass and the false imprisonment of Ms Lawlor, her daughter Emma Carter, and scholar Gabriella Saisa.
He was additionally convicted of theft, of threatening to kill the three girls and of possession of a stolen car, all on the identical date.
The daddy-of-two had denied all prices.
At present on the Courtroom of Enchantment, Kelly’s attorneys submitted a complete of 10 grounds of enchantment in opposition to his conviction and 4 grounds in opposition to his sentence.
Martin O’Rourke KC, for the appellant, mentioned the trial decide had erred when permitting the proof of a prosecution witness figuring out Kelly from CCTV to go earlier than the jury. Mr O’Rourke mentioned that with out this proof, the decide would have needed to direct the jury to seek out Kelly not responsible.
Counsel mentioned no-one had particularly recognized Kelly as “the perpetrator” of the crime, but it surely was the competition of two garda witnesses that they’d recognized the motive force of the automobile used within the theft.
He mentioned there was no proof both detective advised their superior that they noticed the motive force after they have been interviewed over the discharge of a weapon as they gave chase in the course of the theft.
Mr O’Rourke mentioned that it was “important” that within the early stage within the investigation neither guard gave an outline of the motive force as Kelly.
Reliability of identification and the query of equity in admitting the proof have been the problems at play, mentioned counsel.
“This can be a case the place the unreliability of the proof means it shouldn’t be put to the jury,” mentioned counsel.
Mr O’Rourke then performed CCTV body by body to the three judges, footage which he mentioned couldn’t positively determine his shopper.
“You’ll be able to’t facially determine the individual,” mentioned Mr O’Rourke of the CCTV. “The individual had their hood up, so you possibly can’t see a hairline. What you possibly can see is a person in his 50s or 60s with a beard,” he mentioned, including {that a} jury couldn’t make a facial identification primarily based on the CCTV.
“The jury ought to have been sufficiently advised to not make an identification from that,” he mentioned.
The enchantment, earlier than presiding decide Mr Justice John Edwards, sitting with Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, was then adjourned to December 19, when counsel for the State Roisin Lacey SC will reply to Mr O’Rourke’s submissions.
The trial heard that Kelly’s 60 earlier convictions embrace assaults, escaping lawful custody, theft and street site visitors offences. In March 2015 he was sentenced for threatening to kill a Legal Belongings Bureau officer and failure to offer tax returns.
He acquired 10 years for a submit workplace theft in 1997 and 4 years for an additional theft offence in 1989.
