Overview
- The Court of Appeal, which ruled Monday, set aside the 2022 murder verdict after finding the trial judge’s directions to jurors were unbalanced.
- Mr Justice John Edwards said the charge’s strident tone could have led jurors to think the judge believed Connolly was guilty and wanted a conviction.
- The Director of Public Prosecutions will now decide whether to apply for a retrial, leaving the case’s next step unresolved.
- Connolly had been serving a life sentence after a unanimous jury conviction in December 2022 and has spent more than three years in custody.
- At trial, evidence included Connolly’s section 22 admission that he performed oral sex yet left Reilly alive, a mechanism that lets an accused accept parts of the case without witnesses, alongside the State pathologist’s finding of death from external neck pressure.