Graham Dwyer: Architect convicted of murdering care worker Elaine O'Hara has appeal dismissed
Dwyer's lawyers had argued his rights were violated because mobile phone evidence used in the trial was unlawfully acquired, but Ireland's highest court rejected his claim and said it wouldn't have made any difference anyway.
Wednesday 31 July 2024 15:22, UK
The Irish Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Graham Dwyer against his conviction for the 2012 murder of Elaine O'Hara.
The architect was found guilty of murdering Ms O'Hara in March 2015, three years after the care worker went missing and two years after her remains were found in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.
Dwyer's legal team had claimed his rights were violated during the trial because mobile phone evidence used to pinpoint specific places at particular times and dates was unlawfully acquired from what they termed "mass surveillance".
In April 2022, Dwyer won a case in an EU court about the mobile data retention practices used in the case against him.
The Court of Justice of the EU ruled that law in the union forbids the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data relating to electronic communication for the purpose of combating serious crime.
Dwyer subsequently launched an appeal in Ireland on numerous grounds, including the admissibility of the mobile phone data evidence.
The Irish Court of Appeal dismissed his case last year, deciding that the admission of the call data was very limited and did not amount to a miscarriage of justice - but the matter was further brought to the Supreme Court.
Wednesday's judgment by the highest court in Ireland found that the content and timing of text messages was the cornerstone of the prosecution's case.
It noted that the attribution of the messages was "an essential building block" of the case against Dwyer, but that the evidence linking the phones to him and Ms O'Hara had not been challenged or contradicted.
The court rejected the idea that the admission of the phone traffic and location evidence in the case would bring the administration of justice into "disrepute".
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Instead, it emphasised the importance of the evidence, the gravity of the case and the limited and targeted nature of the access in the case.
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Mr Justice Collins said: "Even if the traffic and location data relating to the work was inadmissible [which it was not], the remaining evidence available to the prosecution was more than sufficient to establish attribution beyond any reasonable doubt. The evidence was in fact overwhelming and unanswerable.
"It follows, in my view, that there was no question of any lost chance of acquittal here."
As Dwyer's appeal was dismissed, members of Ms O'Hara's family hugged one another in court.