Man loses appeal to overturn murder conviction

A man jailed for the murder of Jennifer Dornan in west Belfast has lost a bid to have his conviction overturned.

Ms Dornan was stabbed before her house was set on fire in the Lagmore area of the city in 2015.

The man convicted of her murder, 48-year-old Raymond Martin Gabriel O'Neill, had denied killing the 30-year-old mother of three.

In 2022, he received a minimum 22-year jail sentence for murder and arson at Belfast Crown Court.

Mr O'Neill appeared via videolink to hear the appeal decision.

In a statement to BBC News NI, the Dornan family welcomed the ruling.

"We feel relieved and happy. But it's been 10 years of fighting. Our determination is unwavering.

"It means we can now properly grieve for our loved sister, daughter and mother to her three beautiful children."

During the trial, O'Neill claimed that he suffered from memory loss due to being poisoned by prison staff in Dublin.

But he said he would expect someone who had committed murder to have remembered doing so.

Also during the trial, jurors were shown CCTV footage of Ms Dornan walking home, and a man climbing over a fence to enter the property a short time later.

The prosecution successfully argued O'Neill was that intruder.

In the appeal, defence lawyers argued a number of grounds for why the conviction should be challenged.

One issue was the right to introduce evidence mid-trial from a former partner of O'Neill's nephew who undermined another prosecution witness.

The woman testified that she had heard the defendant banging on their door on the morning Ms Dornan died.

She then claimed to have overheard a conversation which involved O'Neill admitting he had "killed someone".

He then allegedly added: "It was the drink and drugs that made me do it."

The woman claimed she came forward after reading a news report of the evidence given by her former partner.

O'Neill's legal team contended there had been a legal error in allowing the prosecution to rely on two conflicting accounts.

They described the development as unfair and wrong.

But the Court of Appeal backed opposing submissions that prosecutors were entitled to rely on new testimony from someone who contradicted one of their own witnesses.

The Lady Chief Justice, Dame Siobhan Keegan said the objective had been to highlight key factual issues about O'Neill's conduct following the killing, which were central to establishing his guilt or innocence.

"The primary purpose of adducing the evidence was to incriminate the applicant," she said.

"No defendant's trial is rendered unfair by the adduction of incriminating evidence."

"We consider it would be offensive to any concept of justice and contrary to common sense, to have excluded the highly material and incriminating evidence on the ground of what was ultimately a purely technical objection having no bearing on the fairness of the trial," she said.

All other grounds of challenge were also rejected.

Dame Siobhan concluded: "The simple question for this court is whether the applicant's conviction is safe.

"The appeal is dismissed on its merits for the reasons given."