Ireland rugby pair cleared of rape lose bid for costs
Olding and Jackson TWO former Irish rugby players cleared of rape have lost a court bid to recoup their legal costs.
Paddy Jackson, 26, and 25-year-old Stuart Olding wanted Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service to pay out hundreds of thousands of euro.
The Belfast men were unanimously acquitted earlier this year of raping the same woman at a party in the city in 2016.
However, the pair were subsequently sacked by both Ulster and Ireland amid controversy over a series of explicit Whatsapp messages revealed during the trial.
Both men are now playing for clubs in France.
Mr Jackson’s costs were considerably higher than Mr Olding’s as the latter applied for legal aid midway through the case.
Judge Patricia Smyth rejected their applications, ruling the decision to prosecute was justified.
She added: “There is simply no evidence upon which this court could conclude the financial circumstances of either have been irrevocably changed as a consequence of the prosecution.”
DUBLIN COURT YESTERDAY
A WOMAN who said she saw her lover being stabbed to death by her boyfriend has told a murder trial parts of her statements were false.
Claire Mcgrath claimed she “hated” the accused at the time of the alleged attack. However, she was back with him within days of the stabbing.
The Central Criminal Court heard yesterday the 30-year-old is still in love with Keith Connorton despite their difficulties. She denied she changed her account, given in front of a jury last Tuesday, because of this.
Connorton, 40, of Deerpark Avenue in Tallaght, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Graham Mckeever at the accused’s home on February 18, 2017.
Ms Mcgrath told prosecuting counsel Brendan Grehan she made two statements to gardai following the 32-year- old’s death at the house she shared with Connorton.
The first was given in the early hours of the morning. She said she couldn’t remember giving the second, which officers recorded as having taken place that afternoon at Tallaght Garda station.
She accepted the evidence she gave in court was “inconsistent” with these.
Mr Grehan said in her statement she made no reference to an “innocent” explanation for Connorton having a knife in his hand as he was chopping cannabis.
DRUGS
Ms Mcgrath claimed she originally said he was rolling a cigarette because she was concerned about what gardai would think of drugs being in the house. She added: “The enormity of what had happened hadn’t hit home to me yet.” Her statement was also incorrect, she claimed, when it stated Connorton used the words, “I’ll kill you”.
She said: “I knew a fight was going to ensue but I didn’t know who was going to get the brunt of it. I was in fear of what I had done, of the whole situation.”
The witness also objected to a record she told Connorton, “Stop, you are going to kill him” or that she begged him to stop because “your son is in the other room”. Mr Grehan put it to her that in her original statement she claimed “Keith was trying to stab Graham”. She said Connorton had “ample opportunity” to stab him but held the knife down to his side as Mr Mckeever punched him repeatedly in the face.
She added the accused then used the knife in a “defensive movement” which she later described as a “swipe”. Ms Mcgrath denied she had seen Connorton stab the deceased “about three times”. The trial continues.
I knew a fight would ensue but not who’d get the brunt of it CLAIRE MCGRATH