The Director of Public Prosecutions will decide in the next few weeks whether to seek a retrial of Dermot Laide for the manslaughter of Mr Brian Murphy outside the Burlington Hotel 4½ years ago.
The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction yesterday and ordered a retrial. Ordering a retrial is a legal assessment of the case, not a statement of what will occur, and the DPP has discretion whether to go ahead with a fresh prosecution. The DPP will make his decision after reviewing the present state of the evidence against Laide with the legal team that prosecuted the case.
However, informed legal sources consider it unlikely that a retrial will go ahead. Witnesses are likely to have an even poorer recollection now than they did a year ago. It would also be difficult to get a jury that would be able to assess the evidence with an open mind, following the blanket media coverage that already rehearsed all the available evidence. Other problems could also arise, following the ruling of the Court of Criminal Appeal that the editing of a statement from one of the accused, Seán Mackey, allowed the jury in the original trial to link Dermot Laide with kicking Brian Murphy, even though no evidence was brought forward that he had done so.
Brian Murphy's family told RTÉ last night that a retrial must take place speedily if confidence is to be restored to the Irish criminal justice system. His parents, Denis and Mary Murphy, said they were "stunned" at yesterday's judgment. "We always knew there was going to be a risk of something like that but on the balance of probabilities we didn't expect anything like we heard today, we're absolutely stunned," Mr Murphy said.
A retrial "has to take place and take place relatively quickly for there to be any credibility restored to what, in my view, is a criminal justice system in tatters," he said. Mrs Murphy said the verdict made her feel a "real sense of powerlessness".
The appeal against the manslaughter conviction was brought on three grounds: that the editing process was prejudicial to Laide receiving a fair trial; that he was prejudiced by the media coverage, and that the trial judge, Judge Michael White, had incorrectly instructed the jury on the question of "common design". The three-judge court upheld the appeal on the first ground only.
Laide had also appealed against his conviction and sentence for violent disorder, but this appeal failed. He is back in jail serving the two- year sentence imposed for this offence and will return to court in two weeks for his sentencing appeal.
Mr Desmond Ryan, however, was successful yesterday in his appeal against conviction for violent disorder. His counsel had argued that the statement he gave to gardaí following his arrest should not have been admitted, because the gardaí entered his house and arrested him without the proper warrant.