A 51-year-old man who has spent 24 years in prison for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl in Conamara, wants to have forensic samples retested in an effort to mount a new appeal against his conviction.
John McDonagh was jailed for life in 2001 for the murder of 17-year-old Siobhán Hynes at Tismeáin beach near Leitir Mór in Conamara in the early hours of 6 December 1998.
He was 27 years old at the time.
McDonagh, who lived at the The Demesne, an Caorán Beag, an Cheathrú Rua, had pleaded not guilty, but a jury found him guilty after three days of deliberation.
McDonagh lost an appeal against his conviction in 2007.
In 2015 he lost a legal challenge seeking an order allowing experts to examine forensic samples gathered during the investigation.
The High Court ruled at that stage that this was a matter that could be considered by the Court of Appeal.
Lawyers for McDonagh today asked the Court of Appeal to allow forensic exhibits to be retested for DNA evidence, which McDonagh's side hope will provide grounds for a new appeal in the case.
Senior Counsel Michael O’Higgins said the issue before the court was whether there was some basis for the tests to be carried out.
He said it was the State’s position that these tests did not need to be done.
He suggested the State was blocking his side from having access to the evidence.
Mr O’Higgins said the "meat and veg" of the case was the affidavits of experts.
He said the potential of new testing methods had come to light, and no DNA experts were obtained for the trial.
He said the defence expert Dr Clare Jarman would say samples from Ms Hynes’s fingernails and intimate swabs should still be available and were not all examined at the time.
He told the court Dr Jarman had pointed out that the forensic community had continued to improve its DNA testing methods since the trial.
The court heard the State’s expert, Dr Dorothy Ramsbottom says testing methods used today are no more likely to generate a profile than they were at the time of the trial.
The State also argues that it will not be possible to generate a profile due to the fact that Ms Hynes’ body was immersed in water and that even if some kind of DNA profile or partial profile was generated it would be unlikely to be of evidential value.
However, Mr O’Higgins said that some of the samples had not been tested at all, and asked was there "anything unreasonable in asking them to be tested now".
McDonagh’s trial in 2001 heard that Ms Hynes disappeared from the village of an Cheathrú Rua on 6 December 1998 at around 12.50am.
She left a car parked outside a local hotel to go to the toilet in a local chip shop, but she never came back.
Earlier, when she tried to go to the toilet in a local pub, a doorman refused her entry because she was under-age.
Ms Hynes had celebrated her 17th birthday a week before she was murdered.
The jury found she was raped by McDonagh, who then tried to choke her.
After leaving her for dead, he drove his car back to an Cheathrú Rua and became involved in a fight.
Her body was found dumped on Tismeáin beach, a rocky cove near McDonagh's home.
The original trial was told she died from compression of the neck and drowning.
The evidence against McDonagh was mainly circumstantial.
But forensic evidence at the trial related to fibres found on the clothes worn by him that night, linking him to Ms Hynes.
Dr Louise McKenna, of the State Forensic Science Laboratory, found "numerous" fibres on the jumper McDonagh wore that night which matched Ms Hynes's petrol-blue polyester fleece jacket and wine acrylic jumper.
She also found fibres on the front and back of his jumper which matched fibres from Ms Hynes's black socks.
Fibres from the fleece and the wine jumper were also found in the front passenger seat of McDonagh's car, and fibres from his red fluffy car-seat cover matched two red fibres found on Ms Hynes's clothes.
Dr McKenna said the fibres lent "very strong support to the proposition that Siobhán Hynes was in contact with John McDonagh's jumper and strong support for her being in his car".
