Conviction quashed over stolen car used in fatal robbery

A man from Northern Ireland who was jailed for conspiring to steal a getaway car used in a robbery in which an Irish police officer was killed has had his conviction overturned.

Det Garda Adrian Donohoe died after he was shot in Lordship Credit Union in County Louth on 25 January 2013.

James Flynn, 34, of Ravens Glen, Newry, was jailed for eight years in 2023.

The Court of Appeal found a decision by the three-judge non-jury Special Criminal Court to amend the indictment against Mr Flynn, after his trial had finished and without consulting either the prosecution or defence, was a breach of his right to constitutional natural justice.

Ms Justice Tara Burns, delivering the judgment on Monday, described the amendment as a "very unusual occurrence" which had denied Mr Flynn the opportunity to make legal arguments over the amendment or to plead guilty to the new charge.

His lawyers had argued that the first they knew of the charge of conspiring to steal the getaway car, a Volkswagen Passat, was after their client had been convicted of it.

Mr Flynn was originally charged with a wider conspiracy to steal cars at various locations in the north east of the Republic of Ireland.

He was also further charged with participation in the robbery of the Lordship Credit Union.

The Special Criminal Court acquitted Mr Flynn of those charges, but amended the indictment to find him guilty of conspiring to steal the Volkswagen Passat car from a property in Clogherhead, County Louth, in January 2013.

At the Court of Appeal last January, Mr Flynn's lawyer, Bernard Condon, argued the decision to amend the indictment after the trial had finished and while the court was acting in its capacity as a jury was an error.

He said the defence was not offered an opportunity to argue about the wording of the change or as to whether it was appropriate.

When the Special Criminal Court amended the indictment, Mr Condon said his client was convicted of a charge which was "never put to him" and on which he was "never given the opportunity to plead".

"The first we heard that this offence was out there was after we had been convicted of it," he said.

Having quashed Mr Flynn's conviction, the Court of Appeal did not consider other arguments made by his lawyers during their appeal.

The court will hear from the parties in the case on Tuesday 18 March as to whether he should face a retrial.

In the Special Criminal Court's judgement, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said with regard to the series of separate creeper burglaries, the prosecution relied on mobile phone evidence which it said showed phones belonging to Mr Flynn had pinged off masts or cell sites adjacent to homes where cars were stolen at multiple locations on various dates in 2012 and 2013.

The judge said the prosecution had failed to prove that the cell sites referred to were the same ones through which Mr Flynn's calls had been made.

He said the court could "draw no conclusions" from the cell site analysis and dismissed the evidence.

The evidence in relation to the creeper burglaries therefore amounted to nothing more than suspicion, the judge said.

Mr Hunt said the evidence did establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr Flynn was an active member of the gang that carried out the robbery and that he was involved with Aaron Brady who was sentenced to life in prison in 2020 for murdering Det Garda Donohoe, and another man involved in the theft of the getaway car.

The court found that Mr Flynn had conspired with two others to steal the Passat, basing its finding on CCTV footage alleged to have shown Mr Flynn's distinctive BMW 5-series acting suspiciously in the early hours on the morning of the theft near to where the Passat was stolen.

Mr Justice Hunt said the evidence showed Mr Flynn and others were involved in "night work" of a criminal variety.

"That being the case, I would amend Count 3, to read that between January 22 and 23 2013 at various locations, James Flynn conspired with Aaron Brady and another to enter premises at Clogherhead to steal the keys of a motor vehicle," he said.

However, the court found the evidence in relation to the robbery at Lordship Credit Union did not prove the prosecution case that Mr Flynn was one of the men directly involved.

Sentencing Mr Flynn to eight years imprisonment in December 2023, Mr Justice Hunt said that at the time when Mr Flynn conspired to steal the Volkswagen Passat he "knew the full purpose of the conspiracy to burgle" and that the conspiracy "encompassed an integral aspect of the robbery" which took place three nights later.