Aaron Connolly, who has spent over three years in jail serving a life sentence for the murder of teenager Cameron Reilly, has had his conviction quashed on appeal.
The Court of Appeal found yesterday that the trial judge’s charge to the jury lacked balance and in parts may have been seen as “advocacy” for the prosecution case.
Judge John Edwards said “such were the stridency and emphasis” of comments made by Judge Tony Hunt while he charged the jury, “there is a real possibility the jury could have perceived that he was personally convinced of the guilt of the accused and that implicitly he was pressing them to deliver a guilty verdict”.
We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Courts Correspondent Frank Greany, who spoke to us in more detail about this.