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The Court of Appeal overturned for the second time the murder conviction of a man who killed a vulnerable homeless man by dumping him down a 40-foot garbage dump.
The three-judge court replaced David O’Loughlin’s murder verdict with a manslaughter verdict having found there was no evidence that he intended to kill or seriously injure Liam Manley.
O’Loughlin (33), of Garden City Apartments, North Main Street, Cork, was convicted of murdering Mr. Manley on May 12, 2013, following a retrial in Central Criminal Court in January 2019.
His first conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal after they learned that the jury had visited the murder site and possibly carried out their own experiment by throwing a stone down the ramp.
His attorney, Michael O’Higgins SC, had argued before the Court of Appeal that the correct decision in O’Loughlin’s retrial would have been a murder conviction.
Following Tuesday morning’s ruling, O’Higgins said his client wishes to apologize for what he did to Manley and thank the court for the careful consideration it gave his case.
O’Loughlin will appear in Central Criminal Court on Friday, where a date will be set for a sentencing hearing.
Having been convicted of murder, he was sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment but a judge of the Central Criminal Court may impose the penalty that he deems appropriate.
The trial heard that Mr. Manley was a vulnerable man, addicted to alcohol, who had been living in a Simon Community shelter in Cork.
O’Loughlin invited Mr. Manley to his apartment, but they had an argument and O’Loughlin pushed Manley up the ramp and returned to his apartment.
His attorneys said at his trial that O’Loughlin believed Manley would make it down the ramp unscathed and have a “soft landing” at the other end.
However, the garbage bags had become trapped in the chute, causing it to get stuck.
In her sentencing, delivered orally on Tuesday, Judge Isobel Kennedy said that for a person to be convicted of murder, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused person intended to kill or cause serious injury.
She described this as a “finely balanced case,” but noted that the responsibility for proving what O’Loughlin intended when he pushed Mr. Manley down the ramp rests with the prosecution.
Judge Kennedy said the court had considered whether death or serious injury were inevitable consequences of O’Loughlin’s actions.
She added: “We think not.”
Kennedy noted that O’Loughlin’s legal team had asked the trial judge to issue an acquittal on the murder charge, but had not focused on the question of intent.
Therefore, he said that while the judge should have ordered an acquittal, the appeal court does not criticize the trial judge.
Judge Kennedy, sitting with Judge John Edwards and Judge Patrick McCarthy, allowed the appeal and overturned the murder conviction, replacing it with a manslaughter verdict.
Michael O’Higgins SC, on behalf of O’Loughlin, said his client had instructed him that whatever the outcome of the appeal, he wanted to thank the court for careful consideration of his case.
O’Loughlin also wrote a letter saying, “I want to sincerely apologize for the death I caused Liam Manley. No human being should have to go through what Liam went through.” He said that the massacre is after him and that he has learned that Mr. Manely was a “kind and caring man.”
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