Graham Dwyer loses appeal

I'll ask you again because you ignored the question the last time: how can a prisoner claim to be rehabilitated if they do not show remorse for the crime they committed?

Well he did either tie her up or handcuff her out there in the Dublin/Wicklow bush, she was alive at the time. And he went back the following morning I think. It’s not that bizarre to think it was just another type of punishment, he just got it wrong thinking she would survive the night. Only he knows and he’s not one for talking.

It's not up to a prisoner to claim they have been rehabilitated.

The loss of liberty is part of the rehabilitation, as is the passage of time, length of time served and as specified in the act the prisoners conduct throughout that period.

But since I have tried to explain it to you now several times with a link to the actual law, it's now your turn.

Where does it state in the law that a convict has to show remorse in order to gain parole as you claimed?

Again the parole board assess risk not guilt, that has been done.

Rest of his days?

I don't see it. I see Malcolm McArthur around Dun Laoghaire the odd time since his release and that was one lad I honestly thought would not see the light of day beyond a high wall ever again. Yet there he is.

I think in the context of parole, rehabilitated means that he won't do the crime again, i.e. murder.

I'm not sure what that entails, if it's a pinky swear on his behalf or if prison psychiatrists/psychologists etc. all get to chime in on his 'rehabilitation'.

I've said it before, I'm surprised he was convicted. A cause of death couldn't be established so I would have thought that left room for reasonable doubt. Don't get me wrong, I 100% think he 'dunnit' but I thought without the cause of death a conviction would be difficult.

20 years is the average life sentence here in Ireland. Dwyer will probably do 25 in total. That's my prediction.

So the Supreme Court have granted the appeal on the basis of public interest.

Which means they are suitably concerned enough.

It was the law itself deemed incompatible and not the application of it. Which is very interesting.

If the COA are to believed, Dwyer hasn't a chance of getting his conviction vacated.

But others may, any idea how many cases this could potentially apply to?

As I understand it, it's not that there's a whole slew of prisoners waiting for the outcome of this case to see if it provides a basis for their own release.

Indeed, but that would not mean that some would not apply to get their conviction vacated, especially in cases which were more reliant on mobile phone data.

was all a terrible accident... he completely changed his method of meeting her from the usual, trackable, method. To a scenario where he told her to leave her car, phone and valuables in one place, so he could me her inconspicuously in another location. Definitely just a terrible accident.

also a lot of personal context conversations, he was an avid model airplane flyer and refer to this a lot in the messages, which AGS were able to cross reference to competitions he took part in... along with their hookups in Stepaside which they were able to place Dwyer in the locality at the time via other methods.

Dwyer denied all of this until he was presented with this evidence, then he admitted to unfolding levels of the story, as much as he thought could get away with, as he thought AGS had nothing on him, but when they caught him out, his story would change....

So, he went from, not knowing Elaine, to, admitting having a long time affair and cutting fetish with her.

While I agree in the world of probabilities, there is infinite scenarios, but, in Ireland, in the time frame we focus on, you have someone who:

-admits having a cutting fetish with someone

-has been tied to phones through various pieces of contextual evidence

-in these phones it discusses stabbing and murder

-DNA evidence to support the affair was found prior to the murder (he denied even knowing Elaine until this evidence was presented)

-had actively spoken about finding a secluded spot to do some humiliation cutting (even though they would do it usually in the apartment in Stepaside)

-Dwyer would meet Elaine in a known manner to both of them, but, on the day in question before her murder, changed that routing in a manner so nothing could be tied to him

I'm gonna bet my house Dwyer had the intention of murder

Yeah- along with information he provided when purchasing the phone in the first place in the shop - he answered a lot of questions put to him by Gardai which appeared all very innocuous to him at the time - things like did he have an interest in flying model planes etc etc - all his answers corroborated with the ping masts of his phone for a variety of situations - now whether it’s this evidence that will be in doubt I guess it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide .

While it would be tragic if he were freed, justice is justice - I would just hope that whatever evidence is left as admissible in a retrial is enough to convict him again

Can you be tried for the same crime twice in Ireland? I know some places have double jeopardy laws.

O'Reilly's case pre-dates the EU legislation around retention of mobile phone data.

The core of the data protection issue relates to meta data they got from the phone company(s) about phone usage - where the phone was, and how it was used (voice call, text message, data). This is the data that comes under the EU legislation which Ireland effectively ignored. We had no controls around how long the data was kept and how it could be accessed by AGS or others.

Data about the content of the text messages would have come from the phones gathered as evidence in the normal ways, and isn't in dispute afaik.

The point about cross referencing the Galway toll bridge usage with mobile phone tracking was a key breakthrough in linking him with the burner phone iirc. This could be undermined if they make their case about our cavalier attitude to data protection laws.

correct... But, as it is a circumstantial evidence conviction, we can safely say this outdoor picnic was going to be a one way affair for everyone but Dwyer.

I know we're going to have the overly pedantic law interpreters here, but, lets call a spade a spade here.

Ah interesting, I thought it did go back that far, because AGS had actually used it in other cases, but never brought it to court, to 1) not show they had the capability and 2) because the laws around lawful intercept were very much in their infancy.

The legislation wasn't ignored, but, it wasn't as watertight as it is now.... AGS were definitely in the grey area with it, as with a lot of this case, there was a lot of evidence that didn't make it to court due to the grey area element of a lot of it (utilising tactics which were used to track paramilitaries etc....).

I don;t see how it can be appealed successfully, but, if it does, a lot of cases (particularly gang related) will come into dispute.

the poster has a history of supporting men who commit violence against women. make of that what you will.

Is Dwyer getting legal aid for these appeals. The bill must be huge by now and talk of heading to European courts.

Yes, they did, but Dwyer's trial predated the JC judgment. An issue raised in the appeal was whether Dwyer's conviction was unsafe because his trial wasn't conducted in the way that the Supreme Court held, in JC, trials like that ought to be conducted.

But that goes to my point. No trials have been conducted in that way since 2015. So even if (which I don't expect) the Supreme Court finds Dwyer's conviction to be unsafe on this ground, the only people who could say that this has implications for their own convictions and they ought to be released would be people tried before 2015, but still in prison (which is not a huge group of people) — and, even then, only those of them whose convictions rested in part on evidence that raised JC-type issues, which would be a small fraction of that group.

If Graham Dwyer had a woman tied up suffering then he wasn't leaving her overnight where he couldn't watch. He would have stayed and relished every moment. He clearly killed her and watched her die. It was clear from the text messages how much his excitement was building that he was finally going to get to kill a woman.

If there was even a tiny chance he didn't intend to kill her. I don't believe that for a second but let's say there was a 1 in a billion chance, I guarantee his only thought when he would have came back to find her dead wouldn't have been "oh **** she died" it would have been "I can't believe she died and I didn't get to watch".

I’m all for playing devils advocate, but you cannot seriously believe that she consented to being killed just to bring him some pleasure.

You can't consent to your own murder.

Her fetish was not cutting, but chains. Which he indulged just as far as it allowed him to claim cutting in return. Elaine complained to her friend at the clinic she was attending that a male friend was insisting on cuts that she did not enjoy, and that he went too far. She also complained the same to Graham in some of the phone messages and fetlife messages that were quoted in evidence. She "broke it off" with him for this reason. But he seduced her back into the relationship with soft words and promises, and she was flattered.

Yes, she was easy to exploit and coerce. The poor girl was pressured relentlessly, and she was in a vulnerable mental state. He treated her with the most heartless disregard for her dignity or safety, he used her like an object. It was WICKED.

And there's no doubt at all that he did it. He deserves to be jailed for the rest of his life and never, ever be let near respectable people again.