Aaron Connolly to be retried over Cameron Reilly murder after original conviction quashed
Alison O'Riordan
Aaron Connolly, who spent three years in prison before his conviction for murdering teenager Cameron Reilly was quashed on appeal, will be retried at the Central Criminal Court later this year.
Having quashed the now 26-year-old defendant's conviction in May, the Court of Appeal ordered that he be retried on the murder charge.
On Wednesday, Justice Paul McDermott set November 23rd as the date for Connolly's retrial before a jury at the Central Criminal Court.
A date of July 24th this year was set for management of the case.
Michael Bowman, for Connolly, told the judge that his client's first trial lasted three weeks but said the retrial would go into a fourth week.
The Court of Appeal ordered the retrial on June 4th this year, having previously found that remarks made by the judge at the original trial may have been perceived by the jury as 'disparaging' of the defence case and 'advocacy' for the prosecution.
Two days later at the Central Criminal Court, Justice McDermott agreed to remand Connolly, who is now aged 26, on bail on strict conditions, including that he live with his parents and not leave the house unaccompanied.
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, 2018.
Alcohol and cannabis were consumed by some of those present, although Reilly’s best friend told the trial that Cameron never took drugs. The group went to a local takeaway to get food shortly after midnight.
Reilly’s body was found in the field the following morning by a man out walking his dog.
During his 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.
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 and received the mandatory life sentence.
That conviction was quashed, with the appeal court finding that the charge delivered by the trial judge, Justice Tony Hunt, contained comments of such 'stridency and emphasis' that there was a "real possibility the jury could have perceived he was personally convinced of the guilt of the accused and that, implicitly, he was pressing them to deliver a guilty verdict".
