Cross-examination of forensic expert was sufficient test of gunshot evidence in murder trial

Court of Appeal – appeal against his conviction for murder at the Central Criminal Court – case was circumstantial in nature – victim shot in the back – seven year old witness – described the assailant as fat – client was a lean person at the time - within minutes of the event vehicle described as that being used to leave the scene was set on fire – vehicle stolen from house in Kildare days before the crime – items of clothing retrieved from the car – barcodes retrieved from the clothes – possible to link with purchases made in supermarket the preceding day – CCTV footage of appellant in Dunnes Stores – gun also found in the car – surveillance on the same day – seen discarding clothing matching description of the assailant – clothing contained residue consistent with firearm residue – bag was placed in the footwell of the garda car – potential contamination – failure by law enforcement to seek and preserve evidence to have relevant gunshot residue – appeal on the ground that the judge misdirected the jury to render the conviction unsafe – comments to the jury during charge must be considered against a background in which there had already been supposedly excessive judicial intervention during the defence’s cross-examination – alleged that this undermined or disparaged the cross examination – observations of the trial judge in the charge had the effect of creating an unbalance view of the evidence to the jury – portions of the charge quoted cannot be taken in isolation – having regard to the complexity of the case, the judge went no further than the case permitted – jury were not led to believe that the decision was not a solely a matter for them - ground of appeal rejected – trial judge wrongly ruled that evidence which was more prejudicial than probative or otherwise inadmissible was admissible - objection to the evidence of expert evidence on the basis that the circumstances of the retrieval of the clothing meant that innocent contamination could not be safely ruled out – European Network of Forensic Institutes – institute standardisation – insufficient approach for trial – best practice guidance – evidence should not have been admitted – each case dependent on its own facts – cross examination was procedurally sufficient basis for testing the evidence – no reason to suppose the jury approached the evidence with anything other than care and weighed it in the ordinary way – judge's approach in adjudicating the issue of admissibility was careful and well-founded – second ground of appeal rejected – appeal dismissed.