One of six family members jailed for the murder of Thomas 'Tom' Dooley in an 'honour killing' during a funeral in a Tralee graveyard has failed to convince the Court of Appeal that his identification by the victim’s widow was unfair and should have resulted in the case being withdrawn from the jury.
Ms Justice Nuala Butler said that while the evidence, excluding the widow’s identification, against Daniel Dooley (45) was circumstantial, it did not necessarily follow that the evidence was tenuous, weak, vague or inconsistent.
She noted that the victim’s widow and other witnesses were cross-examined very thoroughly and effectively on the appellant’s behalf during the trial.
Daniel Dooley, of An Carraigín, Connolly Park, Tralee, Co Kerry had pleaded not guilty to murdering Thomas Dooley at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee on October 5, 2022 but was convicted by a majority jury verdict in July 2024.
He was one of six defendants – including a teenage boy – who were found guilty of murder by a jury who deliberated for nearly 21 hours over five days at the Central Criminal Court in Cork.
Mr Dooley died after he was violently attacked by six men as he attended a funeral at Rath Cemetery, where he suffered "savage" injuries inflicted by a group armed with bladed weapons and acting with "focused and murderous ferocity" in broad daylight.
In his closing speech, Dean Kelly Senior Counsel, prosecuting, submitted to the jury that the six men had used "medieval violence" to "butcher" the father-of-seven in "an honour killing" during the funeral, carrying out a "biblical atrocity" that was "tragic and heartbreaking as it was ridiculous and stupid".
Launching an appeal against Daniel Dooley’s conviction last July, Dominic McGinn SC said his core argument was that the case should have been withdrawn from the jury at the close of the prosecution case as a result of unfairness.
Mr McGinn said the evidence against Daniel Dooley was “significantly different” to the evidence against the other accused at the time. He said the appellant came to be charged “late in the day” and there was very limited time between him being charged and the trial itself.
He said the only evidence against Daniel Dooley was a segment of CCTV that showed him leaving his house and entering a van carrying an implement which was “long and stick like”. He said there was no evidence any such implement was used on the deceased.
“After the incident, he left the scene with a number of others who were accused of violence, so it really was his association,” said counsel.
Mr McGinn said that changed when the deceased’s wife, Siobhan Dooley had named Daniel Dooley during the course of her evidence to the trial.
He said she indicated “in direct terms” that Daniel Dooley had been one of those that attacked her husband.
She had initially identified a different person, he said, but during the course of the investigation it was established that this man was in a different location at the time and could not have been at the graveyard.
Counsel said that in her direct evidence, Siobhan Dooley said she got confused by the faces because the two men were “an awful lot alike”.
In delivering the Court of Appeal’s judgment yesterday, Ms Justice Butler said that this was manifestly not a case where there was no evidence that the alleged crime was committed by the appellant.
She said the evidence consistently showed him to have been in the company of a co-accused, while CCTV evidence showed the appellant placing an item, which could have been used as a weapon, in the rear of the co-accused’s van.
Ms Justice Butler went on to say the court was satisfied that the evidence against the appellant was more than sufficient for it to be properly open to the jury to draw inferences that he was part of a joint enterprise of “a pre-planned violent attack” on the deceased.
“Although circumstantial, this evidence cannot fairly be characterised as tenuous, weak or vague,” she said, adding that the question of whether the evidence was credible or reliable and warranted the drawing of those inferences was exclusively a matter for the jury.
“The law does not mandate that any inconsistency in the evidence against an accused person warrants the case being withdrawn from the jury,” said Ms Justice Butler.
She continued: “The appellant has not established any grounds for believing that the jury in his case were incapable of, or did not fairly assess, the evidence against him prior to reaching their decision to convict him.”
“The credibility of the widow's identification evidence was ultimately a matter for the jury,” said Ms Justice Butler, adding that the trial judge indicated a willingness to allow Dooley’s legal team time to prepare for the cross-examination of this witness.
Ms Justice Butler noted that the Director of Public Prosecutions had decided to prosecute Mr Dooley on the basis of circumstantial evidence - namely the CCTV evidence and the fact that he was identified by a garda witness and a civilian witness at the scene.
She said that the intention to prosecute him was therefore formed before the widow changed her evidence and identified him as having been directly involved in the attack.
In summary, the appeal was rejected by the court.
