THE SUPREME COURT has dismissed Graham Dwyer’s appeal against his conviction for the murder of childcare worker Elaine O’Hara in 2012.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that evidence of mobile phone data was admissible at Dwyer’s trial in 2015.
It means Dwyer has exhausted all legal options to escape his life sentence following an unanimous jury verdict nine years ago.
As the decision was announced, Ms O’Hara’s family members hugged in the court chamber.
Lawyers for Dwyer had argued that his rights were breached through a system of “mass surveillance” involving the retention of mobile phone data which was used to support his conviction.
The judgment delivered today noted that the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case was the content and timing of text messages and linking them to Dwyer.
Judges noted the attribution of those messages were “an essential building block” to the prosecution’s case and the evidence linking the phones to Ms O’Hara and Dwyer had not been challenged or contradicted.
As a result, even if the traffic and location data from the phones had been deemed inadmissible, the appeal would have been dismissed, the court said.
He had appealed on the grounds of having his rights under the European Charter of Fundamental Rights breached by the retention of his mobile phone data.
In December 2018, nearly four years after his conviction, Dwyer won his legal action against the Irish State and the Garda Commissioner over the retention and accessing of his mobile phone records.
The data, which was generated by Dwyer’s work phone, placed the phone at a specific place at a particular time. That data was used to link Dwyer to another mobile phone the prosecution says Dwyer acquired and used to contact Ms O’Hara.
Last March, the Court of Appeal dismissed his conviction appeal on all grounds, including in relation to the admissibility of the call data evidence.
Ms O’Hara, a 36-year-old childcare worker, was last seen in August 2012 in a public park in Shanganagh, south Dublin.
Some of her remains were found on Killakee mountain just over a year later and she was identified from dental records.
Prior to his conviction appeal at the Court of Appeal, Dwyer took High Court civil proceedings that successfully challenged the 2011 Irish law under which the mobile phone metadata was retained and accessed by gardaí investigating Ms O’Hara’s death.
The civil proceedings progressed to the Supreme Court and the CJEU, meaning his separate conviction appeal was not heard by the Court of Appeal until late last year.
Dwyer denies murdering Ms O’Hara.
He also denies buying and using a Nokia phone found in Vartry Reservoir in Co Wicklow in 2013.
His trial was told that the phone was used to send Ms O’Hara messages, including one about stabbing, culminating in a text dated 22 August, 2012– the last day she was seen– to “go down to the shore and wait”.
Includes reporting by Aodhan O’Faolain, PA and Eoghan Dalton
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say