THE APPEAL by Dundalk man Dermot McArdle against his conviction for manslaughter was heard yesterday by a Spanish court.
McArdle (39) received a two-year sentence in October for the manslaughter of his wife Kelly-Ann Corcoran, who died from injuries sustained in a fall from a hotel balcony on the first day of a family holiday in Marbella in February 2000.
McArdle chose not to attend yesterday’s proceedings in person and was represented by his lawyers, Luis Casaubon and Antonia Naranjo.
Several members of the Cor-coran family made the trip for the hearing and heard McArdle’s defence argue that his conviction was unsafe for several reasons, particularly because it was based on “implausible testimony” from another hotel guest, Roy Haines.
During the five-day trial in October, Mr Haines stated under oath that he had heard a “violent argument” and saw the defendant hold his wife above his head on the balcony seconds before she fell to her death.
Mr Haines, a pensioner from Bristol, said he had seen the incident from his room, which was next to the McArdles’ room on the fourth floor of the Don Pepe Hotel, and ran out to tell McArdle to “stop it”.
However, according to the defence the evidence added new and contradictory information to the detailed statements made by Mr Haines to police at the time and repeated later to the judge who conducted the initial investigation into Ms Corcoran’s death.
During its submission to the panel of three High Court judges, McArdle’s defence said that, in reaching its verdict, the jury “should have explained why it had attached greater importance to the new version given in court than to Mr Haines’s original statements more than eight years previously, when the events were fresher in his mind”.
The appeal could backfire on McArdle given the possibility that the court could order a retrial, which would give the prosecution a second opportunity to press for a murder conviction.
A ruling on the appeal is expected early next week.