Daniel Dooley loses appeal over 2022 honour killing conviction in Tralee

The Court of Appeal upheld Daniel Dooley's murder conviction for the 2022 cemetery killing of Thomas Dooley in Co Kerry. His challenge to the widow's identification evidence was rejected.

Appeal court upholds murder conviction in Co Kerry cemetery attack

One of six people jailed for the killing of Thomas "Tom" Dooley at a funeral in Co Kerry has lost his bid to overturn his conviction, the Irish Times reports.

Daniel Dooley (45), of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, had argued before the Court of Appeal that his case should have been withdrawn from the jury at the close of the prosecution case, on grounds that the identification evidence provided by the victim's widow was unfair.

Judge Nuala Butler rejected that argument on Wednesday, finding that the evidence against the appellant — while partly circumstantial — was more than sufficient for a jury to draw proper inferences.

The killing at Rath Cemetery

Thomas Dooley was attacked by six men on 5 October 2022 as he attended a funeral at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee. He died after sustaining what the court described as "savage" injuries inflicted by a group armed with bladed weapons, acting with "focused and murderous ferocity" in broad daylight.

In his closing speech at the original trial, prosecuting barrister Dean Kelly described the attack as "medieval violence" used to "butcher" the father-of-seven in what he characterised as "an honour killing".

All six defendants — among them a teenage boy — were found guilty of murder following nearly 21 hours of jury deliberations over five days at the Central Criminal Court in Cork. Daniel Dooley was convicted by majority jury verdict in July 2024.

Grounds of appeal

Launching the appeal last July, barrister Dominic McGinn argued that Daniel Dooley's position had been materially different from that of his co-accused. McGinn said Dooley had been charged "late in the day", leaving very limited time between charge and trial.

The primary physical evidence, McGinn said, was a segment of CCTV footage showing Dooley leaving his home and getting into a van while carrying an item described as "long and stick-like". He submitted there was no evidence that any such implement had been used on the deceased. Beyond that, he said, the case against Dooley rested largely on his association with others accused of violence after the incident.

The picture changed, McGinn acknowledged, when the victim's wife, Siobhán Dooley, named Daniel Dooley during her trial evidence. However, he said she had initially identified a different person altogether; it was only established during the investigation that this other man could not have been at the graveyard, as he was elsewhere at the time. In her direct evidence, Siobhán Dooley said she had been confused because the two men were "an awful lot alike".

Court's ruling

Judge Butler said it was "manifestly not a case" where there was no evidence linking the appellant to the alleged offence. Even setting aside the widow's identification, she said, the remaining evidence was not so tenuous, weak, vague or inconsistent as to require withdrawal from the jury.

She noted that the witnesses, including Siobhán Dooley, had been cross-examined "very thoroughly and effectively" on the appellant's behalf during the trial. The CCTV footage, she said, showed Dooley placing an item that could have functioned as a weapon in the rear of a co-accused's van, while other evidence consistently placed him in the company of a co-accused at material times.

The court was satisfied, Butler said, that the totality of the evidence was sufficient for a jury to properly infer that Dooley had participated in a joint enterprise amounting to "a pre-planned violent attack" on the deceased.

On the disputed identification, the judge was clear: "The credibility of the widow's identification evidence was ultimately a matter for the jury."

The appeal was dismissed.

Source: Irish Times