Quashing Cork woman’s murder conviction over warrant wording would be ‘absurd’, court finds

THE Court of Appeal has held that quashing a woman’s conviction for murdering her brother following a “family dispute” over their childhood home due to the wording of a search warrant used in the case would be “an absurd triumph of form over substance”.

The three-judge court on Thursday rejected a bid by 57-year-old Helen Jones to rule the warrant unlawful based on the specific wording of the oath taken by a detective garda before a district court judge.

Jones, last of Cahergal Avenue, Mayfield, Cork, was convicted in December 2021 by a unanimous jury verdict of the murder of her 52-year-old brother Paul Jones at his home on Bandon Road in Cork on September 4, 2019. A co-accused in the case, her then partner Keith O’Hara, was also found guilty of the murder.

Jones, who was convicted at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork following a month-long trial, was sentenced by Mr Justice Michael MacGrath to the mandatory term of life imprisonment.

The trial heard Paul Jones was found inside the door of a house on Bandon Road in Cork wearing only his underwear and covered in blood. The cause of death consisted of multiple stab wounds and a chop wound to the head, with a pathology report indicating an injury to the top of his skull had been inflicted with what was described at trial as “a billhook”.

The trial heard there was a “dispute” about the family home at Cahergal Avenue, Ballyvolane, Cork that was before the civil court and which had caused a lot of “disharmony”.

At the Court of Appeal last December, Brendan Grehan SC, for Jones, argued the trial judge erred in finding a search warrant issued on September 10, 2019, was lawful and erred in law in admitting evidence gathered on foot thereof.

It was submitted the trial judge erred in ruling that he was satisfied a detective garda had sworn on oath the information put before the district court judge, during evidence and submissions in a voir dire at trial.

RULING

In delivering the Court of Appeal’s ruling, Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh said the appellant challenged the lawfulness of the search warrant, contending it was not granted based on sworn information as required by law, nor was the application for the warrant recorded.

Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh said the appellant accepted the information given to the district court judge was adequate to grant the warrant and the garda took an oath before reading through the information with the judge.

“In our view, the statutory requirement that the information be provided to the district judge on oath was satisfied in circumstances where the witness actually took an oath,” said Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh.

She noted the appellant had raised the issue that the form of the oath taken did not, in its specific wording, extend to the information being given but instead to the answers to any questions the judge might have.

“For this entire exercise to be invalidated by the fact that a particular formula of words was not used would constitute an absurd triumph of form over substance,” said Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh.

She said the purpose of the oath was to impress upon the witness the importance of telling the truth and she had no doubt this purpose was achieved, as the garda gave oral evidence of matters within his knowledge by reason of his connection to the investigation.

She added the oath taken did implicitly encompass the information read out to the district court and was not limited to any potential answers to the judge’s questions.

Concerning the absence of any recording of the process before the district judge, Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh said no one could disagree the best practice would be to keep a record of the basis upon which a warrant is granted, however, there is no legal requirement to keep a note of everything said by a garda or judge during an application for a search warrant.

“Even though there was no contemporaneous record of the procedure other than the information and warrant documents, we are satisfied that nothing of consequence flows from the absence of any extraneous recording,” she said, dismissing the appeal.