{"id":455152,"date":"2026-05-18T16:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:37:09","slug":"man-who-served-three-years-of-life-sentence-for-cameron-reilly-murder-has-conviction-quashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455152\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who served three years of life sentence for Cameron Reilly murder has conviction quashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal found on Monday that the trial judge’s charge to the jury lacked balance and in parts may have been seen as \u201cadvocacy\u201d for the prosecution case.<\/p>\n

Judge John Edwards said that \u201csuch were the stridency and emphasis\u201d of comments made by Judge Tony Hunt while he charged the jury, \u201cthere 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging that Judge Hunt gave the jury \u201cimpeccable instructions as to the applicable legal principles\u201d involved, Judge Edwards said that some of the trial judge\u2019s comments were capable of being perceived as \u201cdisparaging\u201d and \u201cmocking\u201d of the defence case.<\/p>\n

The trial jury heard that Connolly, who is now aged 26, initially denied that anything sexual happened between him and Reilly on the night and had told garda\u00ed that he was “straight”.<\/p>\n

However, on the seventh day of the trial, Connolly made admissions through his lawyers that he performed oral sex on Cameron Reilly on the night he was killed. The accused said that when he left, Reilly was still alive and standing up.<\/p>\n

Friends of Reilly gave evidence to the trial that he had confided in them that he was bisexual shortly before his death.<\/p>\n

Evidence was also heard from a witness who said he and Aaron Connolly had sexual relations on numerous occasions when they were teenagers. He said Connolly would tell people he was \u201cstraight\u201d.<\/p>\n

Connolly, of Willistown, Drumcar, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of 18-year-old Cameron Reilly at Shamrock Hill, Dunleer, Co Louth on May 26th, 2018, but was found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict in December 2022.<\/p>\n

Reilly, a DKIT student, had been part of a group of around 15 young people who gathered in a field on the outskirts of the town on the night of May 25th.<\/p>\n

Alcohol and cannabis were consumed by some of those present, although Reilly\u2019s best friend told the trial Cameron never took drugs. The group went to a local takeaway to get food shortly after midnight.<\/p>\n

Reilly\u2019s body was found in the field the following morning by a man out walking his dog.<\/p>\n

Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan told the trial the teenager\u2019s cause of death was asphyxia due to external pressure on the neck, with no other contributing factors.<\/p>\n

Different directions<\/p>\n

In his initial statement to garda\u00ed, Connolly said he and Reilly went in different directions at the end of the night, and after the pair parted, he \u201cnever looked back\u201d to see which way Cameron went.<\/p>\n

The accused said he could not remember what he was doing during a \u201cmissing hour\u201d on the night Cameron Reilly died violently, as he had taken a combination of drugs that made him black out.<\/p>\n

Connolly told investigating officers he had taken two grams of cocaine and half a gram of MDMA.<\/p>\n

“I blacked out after I left Cameron,” Connolly said. “I told you everything I know. I\u2019d know if I killed someone.”<\/p>\n

In launching an appeal against the conviction last June, Michael Bowman, representing Connolly, said Judge Hunt had sought to reduce the defence case to the possibility of a \u201cpeeping Tom\u201d who had come out of the bushes aroused or angry and killed Reilly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is nothing if not denigrating of the defence case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He asked the three-judge court to look at the possibility that \u201ca line had been crossed\u201d and amounted to \u201ca deconstruction of the defence closing and thereby of its defence\u201d.<\/p>\n

Counsel also suggested the trial judge had been excessively critical of the conduct of the defence in relation to some prosecution witnesses.<\/p>\n

He said the judge had raised the issue of \u201cfinger pointing\u201d in relation to one witness and had told the jury that no apology had been offered to this person. Bowman said this had the effect of \u201cdisparaging\u201d the defence case.<\/p>\n

Bowman also raised the issue of how admissions made by Connolly through his counsel during the trial were dealt with in the judge\u2019s charge.<\/p>\n

These admissions were made under section 22 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, which allows an accused person to admit certain parts of the prosecution’s case, removing the need to call witnesses to prove those aspects.<\/p>\n

Under the Act, such admissions become “conclusive evidence” of the fact admitted.<\/p>\n

Among the admissions was a claim that Reilly was \u201cin good health\u201d when Connolly left him.<\/p>\n

In delivering the Court of Appeal\u2019s judgment on Monday, Judge Edwards said that Judge Hunt had given \u201cimpeccable instructions as to the applicable legal principles\u201d in the case.<\/p>\n

However, the court agreed with the submission of Connolly\u2019s barristers that Judge Hunt’s charge to the jury lacked balance and that in places, \u201cit may have been perceived by jury members as advocacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did over and over again, and with great insistence, seek to make clear to the jury that he had strong personal views on certain aspects of the case,\u201d said Judge Edwards.<\/p>\n

New narrative<\/p>\n

He observed that Judge Hunt told the jury that, if the new narrative put forward by the Section 22 admission had been put forward four years previously, the garda\u00ed would have sought to probe this further.<\/p>\n

Judge Hunt also said to the jury that this new narrative could not be received unquestioningly and be taken at face value \u201cas being the answer to everything\u201d, adding the idea that it could \u201cis not something that sits comfortably with me, and I don\u2019t think it would have sat comfortably with the guards\u201d.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging that many of the concerns being raised by the trial judge were legitimate ones, Judge Edwards said that in commenting on the evidence, the trial judge did not confine himself to commending questions to the jury that they might consider asking.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather, he repeatedly went further and told them what his personal views were on how such questions should be answered,\u201d said Judge Edwards.<\/p>\n

He noted that Judge Hunt had \u201cassiduously and repeatedly\u201d told the jury that while his views were offered as personal comments, the jurors were not bound by them and were free to disregard those comments if they disagreed with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that the trial judge\u2019s said repeated exhortations betray a consciousness on his part that he had entered perilous territory and had gone right up to the boundary of what was permissible\u201d, said Judge Edwards, going on to say that Judge Hunt was conscious he had expressed views that would \u201cprove controversial\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are satisfied that the trial judge did not intentionally seek to influence the jury inappropriately, and indeed tried his best, albeit unsuccessfully, not to do so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Judge Edwards went on to say it was \u201cparticularly unfortunate\u201d that Judge Hunt had aligned his views with views he was prepared to attribute to the garda\u00ed, which added to the real possibility of a perception by the jury that the trial judge had aligned himself with the prosecution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Pastor<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Pastor (80s) who sexually abused child in his congregation jailed for over 12 years<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

With regard to the other submissions, he said the trial judge\u2019s references to \u201cthe spectre of some kind of peeping Tom nearby\u201d were also capable of being perceived as disparaging and \u201cmocking\u201d of the defence case.<\/p>\n

Judge Edwards said that the trial judge\u2019s remarks that he had \u201cformed bits and pieces of a view about bits and pieces of the evidence\u201d were unwise, as they may have invited speculation among the jury as to what views the judge had formed.<\/p>\n

He said the conviction was therefore quashed, with the Director of Public Prosecutions now to decide whether to apply for a retrial of the accused.<\/p>\n

The matter has gone back to June 4th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Connolly, who has spent over three years in jail serving a life sentence for the murder of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-455152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}