The Court of Appeal has upheld serial killer Mark Nash's conviction for the "cold-case" killing of two women in Dublin known as the Grangegorman murders.
Nash was found guilty in 2015 of murdering the two women, whose mutilated bodies were found in sheltered accommodation in Grangegorman 21 years ago.
The 44-year-old, who is originally from England but has last addresses at Prussia Street and Clonliffe Road in Dublin, had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the murder of Sylvia Sheils (59) and Mary Callanan (61) between March 6th and March 7th, 1997.
A Central Criminal Court jury unanimously found Nash guilty after four hours of deliberations following a 48-day trial and he was accordingly given the mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Carroll Moran on April 20th, 2015.
Nash had already been serving life since October 1998 for murdering two people in Ballintober, Castlerea, Co Roscommon in mid-August 1997. The four murders were committed within the space of five months.
‘Entirely fair’
Dismissing Nash's appeal on all grounds on Tuesday, Mr Justice Alan Mahon said it was the "strong view" of the three-judge court that Nash's trial for the Grangegorman murders was "entirely fair" and it had "produced a verdict well justified by the evidence".
Mr Justice Mahon, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice Michael White, said none of the various grounds of appeal had been upheld by the court and “accordingly we must dismiss the appeal”.
Nash was not in court for the delivery of the judgment.
Mr Justice Mahon said the grounds of appeal were “many and relate to almost all aspects of the trial”.
He said the extensive scientific evidence did not conclusively prove or disprove contamination.
In the Court of Appeal’s view, there were “certainly conflicts in the evidence” between scientists called on behalf of the State and scientists called on behalf of Nash in relation to the issue of contamination. Mr Justice Mahon said the extensive scientific evidence did not conclusively prove or disprove contamination and was not so strong as to justify the withdrawal of the case or the granting of a direction to the jury.
Mr Justice Mahon said there was clear justification for the jury to determine that the DNA profiles on Nash’s jacket were present on the jacket from the time of the double murder. Such a determination, assuming it was made, could not be said to be perverse or against the evidence.
The complexities of the trial were not limited to the manner of how Nash had become involved in the investigation (his admissions, later retracted).
Original suspect
A further complicating factor was the involvement of the original suspect Dean Lyons, who had made "what transpired to be false admissions to the Grangegorman murders and who died in the year 2000".
Mr Justice Mahon said the trial itself had seen many issues which required legal arguments and rulings by the trial judge. Many of those in turn became the subject of grounds of appeal, detailed over four days of hearing last November.
He said the various grounds of appeal had been considered in detail, particularly issues related to Nash’s admissions and the scientific evidence.
“Neither those grounds, nor indeed any of the other grounds of appeal, have been upheld by this court and accordingly we must dismiss the appeal.”
Mr Justice Mahon said it should be noted that in general terms, the lengthy and complex trial was conducted by a very experienced criminal trial judge in a careful, indeed exemplary, fashion and was, “in the strong view of this court, an entirely fair trial which produced a verdict well justified by the evidence”.