Garda killer Aaron Brady concerned negative publicity could damage retrial

Garda killer Aaron Brady has concern that publicity of his witness interference trial could be “damaging” to any potential murder retrial.

Brady (33), originally from south Armagh but currently housed in Portlaoise maximum security prison, is appealing his conviction for the capital murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe on January 25, 2013.

A jury found him guilty by majority verdict after agreeing he was the masked gunman that fired the fatal shot at the detective in the car park of Lordship credit union near Dundalk, county Louth.

Brady is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum of 40 years imprisonment for capital murder as well as a concurrent sentence for robbery.

During the lengthy trial in 2020, repeated concerns were raised by the prosecution about alleged efforts to interfere with witnesses.

Following a garda investigation, Brady and his alleged co-conspirator, Dublin man Dean Byrne (30), were charged.

They are both accused of conspiring to persuade a state witness, Daniel Cahill, not to testify in the murder trial, between April 8 and June 22, 2020.

During the trial, Mr Cahill testified that Brady admitted to the murder multiple times while living in New York.

Aaron Brady is further accused of recording the playing of a video of a witness being interviewed by gardaí, thus embarking upon a course to pervert the course of public justice, between February 20, 2020, and May 7, 2020.

It emerged in the trial that video footage of one witness giving a statement to gardaí had been circulated online, with the trial judge Mr Justice Michael White describing it as the “most outrageous contempt of court” he had come across.

Brady and Byrne’s trial was due to begin at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin this morning, but was adjourned to tomorrow following an application by the defence.

Michael O’Higgins SC said that his client has appealed his capital murder conviction and that judgement in that case is still outstanding.

He said that, if Brady succeeds in his appeal, they anticipate that a retrial will be directed and priority will be given to that retrial.

Mr O’Higgins said that in those circumstances he has concern “any publicity generated” by the trial for perverting the course of justice “might well be potentially damaging to jurors in that case”.

He also referenced the seminal judgement of the Irish Times versus Murphy, relating to the prohibiting of media reporting of court proceedings.

Mr Justice Paul Burns, presiding at the non-jury court, said that the understood the “jist of the issue” and adjourned the trial until tomorrow.