Man who did three years of life sentence for teen’s murder walks free as conviction quashed

Aaron Connolly has had his murder conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after serving more than three years of a life sentence for killing teenager Cameron Reilly

Aaron Connolly, who has spent more than three years behind bars serving a life sentence for the murder of teenager Cameron Reilly, has had his conviction overturned.

The Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge’s directions to the jury were unbalanced and in certain parts could have been perceived as “advocacy” for the prosecution. Mr Justice John Edwards stated today that “such were the stridency and emphasis” of remarks made by Mr Justice Tony Hunt while charging the jury, “there is a real possibility the jury could have perceived that he was personally convinced of the guilt of the accused and that implicitly he was pressing them to deliver a guilty verdict”.

The trial jury was told that Connolly, now 26, initially denied that anything of a sexual nature occurred between himself and Mr Reilly on the night in question, and had informed gardaí that he was “straight”. However, on the seventh day of proceedings, Mr Connolly admitted through his legal representatives that he had performed oral sex on Cameron Reilly on the night of his death, maintaining that when he departed, Mr Reilly was still alive and on his feet.

Friends of Mr Reilly told the trial that he had confided in them that he was bisexual shortly before his death, reports the Irish Mirror.

Connolly, of Willistown, Drumcar, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of 18-year-old Cameron Reilly at Shamrock Hill, Dunleer, Co Louth on May 26 2018, but was unanimously found guilty by a jury in December 2022. Mr Reilly, a DKIT student, had been among a group of roughly 15 young people who assembled in a field on the edge of the town on the evening of May 25.

Some of those those present consumed alcohol and cannabis, though Mr Reilly’s closest friend testified that Cameron never took drugs. The group visited a local takeaway to purchase food shortly after midnight.

Mr Reilly’s body was discovered in the field the next morning by a man walking his dog.

Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan informed the trial that the teenager’s cause of death was asphyxia resulting from external pressure on the neck, with no other contributing factors. In his original statement to gardaí, Connolly claimed he and Mr Reilly headed in separate directions at the end of the evening and after they parted, he “never looked back” to see which way Cameron went.

When launching an appeal against the conviction last June, Michael Bowman SC, representing Connolly, argued that Mr Justice Hunt had attempted to reduce the defence case to the possibility of a “peeping Tom” who had emerged from the bushes aroused or angry and killed Mr Reilly.

“That is nothing if not denigrating of the defence case,” he said.

He urged the three-judge court to consider the possibility that “a line had been crossed” and amounted to “a deconstruction of the defence closing and thereby of its defence”.

Mr Bowman also raised concerns about how admissions made by Connolly through his counsel during the trial were addressed in the judge’s charge. These admissions were made under section 22 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, which allows an accused person to admit certain parts of the prosecution case, removing the need to call witnesses to prove those aspects.

Delivering the Court of Appeal’s ruling today, Mr Justice Edwards stated that the court sided with arguments put forward by Connolly’s legal team, finding that Mr Justice Hunt’s directions to the jury lacked balance, and that in certain passages “it may have been perceived by jury members as advocacy”.

As a result, the conviction was overturned, with the Director of Public Prosecutions now facing the decision of whether to seek a retrial of the defendant.

Source link