An ex-Army Ranger and former monitor in Iraq who stabbed to death an 18-month-old infant in Tallaght has lost his appeal against his conviction for manslaughter.
Lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions indicated after yesterday's Court of Criminal Appeal decision that the DPP is to bring proceedings arguing that the five-year suspended sentence imposed in May 2004 on John Reilly was unduly lenient.
Reilly (32), Crooksling, Jobstown, Tallaght, Co Dublin, had pleaded not guilty in the Central Criminal Court in April 2002 to the murder of Oisín Reilly-Murphy at Kiltalawn, Jobstown, on June 5th, 2000.
The prosecution claimed Reilly murdered Oisín, the son of his cousin, after a night's drinking at a relative's house where Reilly and the child's parents had stayed overnight. He was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
The central issue in Reilly's appeal was whether the trial judge was correct in telling the jury that, even if they found Reilly had suffered the condition of automatism, that was not a defence if they found it was brought on through consumption of alcohol.
Yesterday, the appeal court found the trial judge's charge was "perfectly correct" and dismissed the appeal. Mr Justice McCracken, presiding and sitting with Ms Justice Laffoy and Ms Justice Kearns, said the case was a tragic one and the court had great sympathy for everybody concerned, including Reilly.
Outlining the background, Mr Justice McCracken said John Reilly was home on holidays on June 4th, 2000, and it had been arranged he would stay the night at the house of his cousin, Hugh Reilly. That evening he went out with friends. They visited two pubs and appeared to have had five or six drinks.
John Reilly returned to his cousin's house shortly before midnight where Mr Hugh Reilly, his wife Siobhán, another cousin, Mr Thomas Reilly, and his partner, Ms Gráinne Murphy, were playing cards in the kitchen. The latter couple had an 18-month-old child, Oisín Reilly-Murphy, who was asleep on the sofa in the sitting room.
John Reilly joined the party in the kitchen and a considerable quantity of alcoholic drinks were consumed.
In the early hours the two mothers went to bed. Later, all other alcohol in the house having been consumed, a bottle of poitín was produced.
It was not clear how much poitín John Reilly drank, but he certainly had at least one glass.
The three men decided to go to bed about 4.30 a.m. Two armchairs in the sitting-room were put together to make a kind of cot for baby Oisín and John Reilly was given a sleeping bag to sleep on the couch.
About 8.30 a.m., Oisín's mother came downstairs to see how the baby was.
She could not see him at first but saw John Reilly in a very deep sleep on one of the chairs. It seemed the furniture had been moved back to its normal position at some stage.
She then saw Oisín lying on the armchair beside John Reilly. He had been stabbed eight or nine times in the back of the neck and was dead.
She got assistance from others in the house but the applicant was still in a very deep sleep and they had to pour water on him to waken him. A Leatherman's knife which he always carried in a pouch was on the floor beside him.
When he eventually woke, he was very dazed and it was common case that he had no memory of what occurred.
Mr Justice McCracken said the defence was not challenging the general principle that intoxication was not a defence to a manslaughter charge.
However, they were contending the facts of the case gave rise to a defence of automatism.