Graham Dwyer’s protracted bid to overturn his murder conviction may have suffered a significant setback, perhaps even a fatal blow, at the Supreme Court. The court’s six to one rejection on Monday of arguments, in separate but linked appeals by Caolán Smyth and Gary McAreavey, that phone metadata evidence was inadmissible at their trials could herald bad news for Dwyer. Lawyers for Dwyer made similar, although not identical, arguments to the Supreme Court about the admissibility of phone data, in his separate appeal aimed at overturning his 2015 conviction for the murder of Elaine O’Hara.
Judgment on Dwyer’s appeal is expected within weeks. In long-running civil proceedings that went to the High Court, Supreme Court and Court of Justice of the European Union, Dwyer had successfully challenged the validity of section six of the 2011 Communications (Retention of Data) Act which permitted phone metadata to be retained “on a general and indiscriminate basis”. In its April 2022 judgment, the CJEU found Ireland’s data-retention regime breached EU law.
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