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Tiger kidnapper Paschal Kelly to remain in jail after appeal over €92k post office robbery fails

Kelly (57) was part of gang that tied up and abducted three women during 2014 raid

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Gangland criminal and ‘tiger kidnapper’ Paschal Kelly is to remain behind bars after failing in a bid to overturn his conviction for a €92,000 post office robbery, during which three women were tied up and abducted.

Kelly (57) was one of a gang of three men who burst into the home of postmistress Susan Lawlor in Malahide, Dublin, on September 25, 2014. He was sentenced to 18 years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2018.

The gang used cable ties to bind Ms Lawlor, her daughter and an Italian student who was staying at the home.

The women were brought to a field where they were held overnight before the gang drove them to the Bayside Post Office in Sutton, Dublin.

At one stage, Kelly threatened to burn them alive in a car by pouring petrol over it. The raiders eventually left with the cash.

Kelly with last addresses in Cootehill, Co Cavan, and Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, was convicted of trespass and the false imprisonment of Ms Lawlor, her daughter, Emma Carter, and student Gabriella Saisa.

He was also convicted of robbery, burglary, of threatening to kill the three women and of the unlawful possession of a vehicle, all on the same date.

The father-of-two had denied all charges.

At the Court of Appeal last October, Kelly launched an appeal against his convictions on six charges associated with the kidnapping, citing purported CCTV and identification failings that he claimed made his trial unsafe.

Martin O’Rourke KC, for the appellant, argued that the trial judge had erred when allowing CCTV identification evidence to go before the jury.

Mr O’Rourke said that without this evidence, the judge would have to direct the jury to find Kelly not guilty.

It was the prosecution case that Kelly was both the most aggressive of the home invaders and the driver of a Volkswagen Golf used by the raiders.

After the robbery, the Golf was intercepted by armed gardai, one of whom said he had an unobstructed view of the driver of the car.

At around 10.30pm that night, a taxi driver brought a man from Malahide to an estate in Balbriggan where Kelly’s partner lived, stopping at an Applegreen service station along the way.

One of the detectives identified the driver of the VW Golf that had earlier been intercepted on CCTV footage from both the Applegreen and from a location on the Swords Road.

A retired sergeant who knew Kelly for over 20 years also said that the individual on each recording “bore a striking resemblance” to Kelly.

Counsel said that no-one had specifically identified Kelly as “the perpetrator” of the crime but it was the contention of two Garda witnesses that they had made an identification of the driver of the car used in the robbery.

Mr O’Rourke had submitted that it was “critical” that in the early stage in the investigation that neither guard gave a description of the driver of a VW Golf as Kelly.

Reliability of identification and the question of fairness in admitting the evidence were the issues at play, said counsel.

“This is a case where the unreliability of the evidence means it should not be put to the jury,” said counsel.

Mr O’Rourke then played CCTV frame-by-frame to the three judges, footage which he said could not positively identify his client.

“You can’t facially identify the person,” said Mr O’Rourke of the CCTV.

“The person had their hood up, so you can’t see a hairline. What you can see is a man in his 50s or 60s with a beard,” he said, adding that a jury could not make a facial identification based on the CCTV.

“The jury should have been sufficiently told to not make an identification from that,” he said.

Mr Justice John Edwards said the trial court did not err in admitting the evidence of witnesses who identified the person shown in CCTV footage as being the driver of a VW Golf used by the robbers.

Mr Justice Edwards said the Court of Appeal was also satisfied that two Garda witnesses had an “unobstructed, albeit brief, view of the driver, following the stopping of the VW Golf” at the Malahide Road and Swords Road junction.

“Any alleged contradictions in the evidence pointed to by the appellant, while possibly relevant to the credibility of those witnesses, were not relevant to the reliability of their purported observations on that occasion,” said Mr Justice Edwards.

Mr Justice Edwards said that any credibility issues around the identification – which Kelly denied took place at all – was “quintessentially a matter for the jury to resolve”.

“There was no basis for excluding that aspect of the evidence and the trial judge was right to admit it,” said Mr Justice Edwards, who added that the identification was only one aspect of a circumstantial case in which “several strands make a rope”.

Mr Justice Edwards said that other strands of evidence included lay witnesses who observed the movements of the VW Golf, DNA profiles matching the appellant on various items from various locations, photofit imagery, CCTV stills from Pearse Street Garda Station and lay testimony from a retired sergeant who knew Kelly for over 20 years and also identified him from CCTV footage.

During the appeal, counsel for the State Eoin Lawlor BL had submitted that there was a “cornucopia of evidence” linking Kelly to the crime.

Mr Justice Edwards said that there was more to the CCTV evidence than just facial identification “such as the person’s build, manner of dress, gait, comportment, direction and route travelled while on camera”.

“In our judgement, the trial judge was well equipped to make the assessment that she found sufficient continuity, clarity and coherence to allow the CCTV to be safely admitted before the jury as real evidence so that they might conduct a fair and reliable assessment of it. We consider that the trial judge has not been demonstrated to be in error in doing so,” said Mr Justice Edwards.

Kelly’s lawyers also unsuccessfully appealed on grounds that the trial judge failed to direct the jury to not attempt to make their own identification of the appellant from the CCTV footage, arguing that no such identification was permissible due to the poor quality of the footage.

Mr Justice Edwards said that the trial judge did not seek to limit the use of the CCTV for the jury.

“This is not really surprising; she was not asked to do so. What is surprising is that she was not asked to do so by defence counsel,” he said.

Mr Justice Edwards said the trial judge was “completely clear that she regarded [particular CCTV evidence] as being potentially relevant and probative and it was right and proper for it to be admitted before the jury”.

It had been also submitted by the appellant that an identity parade had not been carried out by gardaí and that there had been no contemporaneous notes taken regarding gardaí viewing CCTV.

“We have no hesitation in rejecting these grounds of appeal,” said Mr Justice Edwards, who said there was no requirement in law to keep a contemporaneous record of the viewing of the CCTV footage.

“The relevant witnesses were available for cross-examination and any concerns relating to the circumstances in which the viewing occurred were capable of being ventilated before the jury,” said Mr Justice Edwards.

The judge said that a “reasonable explanation” had been provided for not holding an identity parade as the evidence at trial was that Kelly had “changed his appearance at the point at which the possibility of holding an identity parade fell for consideration”.

“In circumstances where we have not been disposed to uphold any of the appellant’s grounds of appeal against his convictions, the appeal is dismissed. We have no reason to believe that the appellant’s conviction was other than safe and satisfactory,” he said.

Mark Lynam SC, for Kelly, said an appeal against the severity of Kelly’s 18-year sentence was still alive.

The 2018 trial heard that Kelly’s 60 previous convictions included assaults, escaping lawful custody, robbery and road traffic offences. In March 2015 he was sentenced for threatening to kill a Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) officer and failure to provide tax returns.

He received ten years for a post office robbery in 1997 and four years for another robbery offence in 1989.

Kelly with last addresses in Cootehill, Co Cavan, and Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, was convicted of trespass and the false imprisonment of Ms Lawlor, her daughter, Emma Carter, and student Gabriella Saisa.

He was also convicted of robbery, burglary, of threatening to kill the three women and of the unlawful possession of a vehicle, all on the same date. The father-of-two had denied all charges.