Man jailed for life for murdering girlfriend appeals verdict

A Polish man jailed for life for the murder of his girlfriend, whom he blamed for having him evicted from his flat, has asked the Court of Appeal for either a retrial or a lesser verdict.

Waldemar Solowiow (48), had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mary Ryan (37) but guilty to her manslaughter at his home on Sherrard Street Upper, Dublin 1, between May 18th and 19th, 2012.

Ms Ryan, from Drogheda, was found unconscious in Solowiow’s Dublin bedsit. She was rushed to hospital but died almost immediately due to neck compression and blunt force trauma to the head.

Solowiow said they had had a physical fight the night before she died, that he was provoked and did not mean to kill her.

He was found guilty of her murder by a majority jury verdict in the Central Criminal Court and was given the mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Patrick J McCarthy on October 31st, 2013.

Counsel for Solowiow, Paul Burns SC, asked the Court of Appeal on Tuesday to either order a retrial or substitute the verdict of murder for manslaughter.

Mr Burns told the court that the central issue in the case was whether Solowiow had been provoked by his girlfriend in the moments before her death.

The court heard Solowiow had given a false account of how Ms Ryan came to her death and had persisted with that false account in a number of Garda interviews before eventually recanting and accepting responsibility for the killing.

Mr Burns asked whether there was any probative value in admitting into evidence Solowiow’s false account when he accepted at trial responsibility for her death.

How could a jury properly directed come to the conclusion that Solowiow’s lies were inconsistent with his case for provocation and only consistent with murder, Mr Burns asked.

The false account may have been relevant to credibility but was not probative of guilt, he submitted.

He said the prosecution emphasised Solowiow’s ‘cock and bull story’ as proof of guilt which did not help the jury.

There are many reasons why an accused might tell lies, Mr Burns said, and the onus was on the prosecution to direct the jury on what inferences could be drawn from the lies.

When pressed on why the trial judge was not asked to clarify certain legal points in his directions to the jury, Mr Burns said there was clearly an inadvertence.

The court heard separately that Solowiow dismissed his legal team after the trial.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, John O'Kelly SC, said provocation could only arise because of what an accused said had happened. Therefor his credibility was absolutely essential from the jury's point of view.

He said the jury only had one witness who could give evidence on provocation. That witness was Solowiow, he said, and the jury was entitled to ask whether they could rely on his evidence.

The fact that he was not just prepared to tell lies but construct an elaborate scenario of lies and persist with those lies over several Garda interviews, Mr O’Kelly said, was central to the question of whether his version could be relied upon.

Mr O’Kelly said there was no explanation as to why a requisition wasn’t made of the trial judge on these points.

Mr Justice George Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice John Edwards, said the court would reserve judgment to a date as soon as possible.