THE COURT of Criminal Appeal (CCA) will give its judgment tomorrow on the appeal by Joe O’Reilly against his conviction for the murder of his wife Rachel at their home in The Naul, Co Dublin.
The appeal was heard last December by a three-judge CCA with the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, presiding and sitting with Mr Justice Roderick Murphy and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy. The court reserved judgment and will give that ruling tomorrow morning.
O’Reilly, who denies murdering his wife, had attended his appeal, which was heard over one day.
The trial heard that Rachel O’Reilly’s body was found in the bedroom of the couple’s home by her mother, Rose Callaly, on the morning of October 4th, 2004. She was killed as a result of receiving several blows to the head from a blunt instrument.
O’Reilly, Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, was convicted unanimously by a jury in July 2007 of the murder of his 30-year-old wife at their home on October 4th, 2004. He was given the mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Barry White.
The grounds of O’Reilly’s appeal included that evidence of mobile phone records and data relating to the location of his mobile phone on the date of his wife’s murder should not have been permitted by the trial judge to go before the jury.
It was also argued there was no evidence before the court that O2 Ireland was a licensed phone operator under the terms of the Postal and Telecommunications Service Act 1983 and therefore the phone evidence was not legally before the jury.
It was further submitted that e-mails from a computer alleged by the prosecution to be O’Reilly’s should have been excluded on grounds their evidential value was outweighed by their prejudicial value. The e-mails were sent in June 2004, several months before Rachel’s death, and it was argued that time was too far removed from the events of October 2004.