Graham Dwyer murder appeal boosted by European Court ruling

19 comments

1. Only an EU Court to find the right to privacy so be more important than the right to life. If you murder someone and take their right to life, surely your right to privacy is null and void. Can this verdict be appealed?

2. The Irish EU MPs need to lobby to change the EU law. No wonder criminal enterprises are so hard to counter. We tie the hands of investigators behind their backs. The investigation of that women’s murder was magnificent work by the Gardaí.

3. *not a law person*

   I remember when the case was on the Irish times podcast had an episode on the case.

   They talked about how loads of European countries had made submissions on the case, as it will also affect crime and terrorism investigations. This ruling could cause massive issues for investigators across Europe.

   For this particular case there is other evidence linking him to the location. Whether that is strong enough for him to lose his appeal, or if he does win, to convict on retrial is hard to tell.

4. This is a good ruling in the grand scheme of things, just so happens to be framed around a horrific case.

   If the evidence to convict him was illegally obtained then it probably has to go to retrial, or he might be acquitted if there’s insufficient evidence

5. This ruling in a modern world just gives carte blanche to criminality, and a murderer could walk free off the back of it, not just a murderer in fact, but many murderers and criminals.

   Put every check and balance in place, approval by a judge before the data can be sought, whatever is needed, but don’t take this investigation tool out of the hands of police, it’s perverse…

6. You get the feeling this whole case will end up as a Netflix documentary in a few years, hopefully Dwyer is behind bars at the end.

7. The thought of that prick celebrating this win is sickening to me, so god knows how Elaine o Haras family feel. Even the hint of that man being free from prison must be hell for them.

8. He would be a waste of a silver bullet. The cunt.

9. The woman that he murdered went through so much in life only to be killed by this absolute creep.

10. Unpopular opinion, but as someone who very closely followed the case at the time, I was shocked that he was found guilty.. Undoubtedly it was proven that he was a horrible excuse for a human being, that he was a conniving, duplicitous, perverted sack of shit… Elaine was an incredibly vulnerable person, manipulated and coerced by this monster… But the evidence didn’t PROVE Dwyer murdered her, only that he MAY have contributed to it. Her cause of death was never determined or explained. That’s a fact. He was convicted on the “quacks like a duck” mentality imho. Murderers have been convicted previously without a body or a cod of the victim, but the other evidence and burden of proof must reach a higher bar in those cases. Hard cases make bad law is an old adage, but nonetheless true.

11. Oh feck, if he gets left out

12. I saw somewhere 90 articles have also been removed in relation to him from Google under the right to be forgotten.

    He will be freed, he was convicted due to his sextual desires unheard of in religious Ireland.

    If we had proper detectives and science he would stay locked up.

13. I sat down to post a comment justifying the retention of phone metadata by the state for the purposes of identifying suspects for crimes.

    However, I suppose, the danger is that the data could be misused by a rogue state, eg to track the location of journalists like Khashoggi. A year ago Dubai purchased some high-spec spyware app and then misused it to spy on the wife of the ruler in a divorce case. And even in liddle ole Ireland, politicians misused the tools of the state to spy on the phones of journalists Kennedy and Arnold in 1980s.

14. There’s a lot of people that are saying that this ruling is for the good of society etc however if it was their Mother, Sister or partner that was brutally murdered they wouldn’t be so sanctimonious.

15. Simple solution ignore the court in Europe and keep him locked away.

16. There should be a way of linking direct, spare us the op-ed every time, boo redit

17. I hear they are going to pursue roaming charges against him

18. Legal system is a money making scam. End of story.

19. I wonder if this affects Joe O’Reilly as well, I guess the mobile evidence wasn’t the only evidence in his case. But it was damning evidence.