Farmer jailed for killing Traveller to appeal
A farmer jailed for six years for shooting dead a Traveller on his land will this week make a bid for freedom.
Padraig Nally, who was last year sentenced for the manslaughter of father-of-eleven John ’Frog’ Ward, is set to appeal against his conviction.
The Court of Criminal Appeal will hear Mr Nally’s case on Thursday.
In July, a jury found the 61-year-old, of Funshinaugh, Cross, Co Mayo, not guilty of the murder of Mr Ward.
The 42-year-old had been shot twice and beaten 20 times with a stick.
The second and fatal shot was fired after Mr Ward, from Carrowbrowne Halting Site, on the outskirts of Galway city, had left the farmyard in October 2004 and was limping down the road.
During his trial, Mr Nally told the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar that he never intended to kill the Traveller.
In his defence he told the jury in the 18 months before the shooting there were two break-ins at his property and he was growing increasingly paranoid and fearful.
He said he believed his life was under threat and he was living in fear of being broken into and killed in his bed. He said he often only slept a few hours at night.
The farmer told how on the day Mr Ward came into his farmhouse, he confronted the intruder with the gun at the back door and it went off accidentally. He maintained Mr Ward then took the gun off him and tried to hit him with it but he got it back. During a scuffle Mr Ward was hit at least ten times with a stick.
Mr Nally then reloaded the gun and followed Mr Ward down the road and fired a second shot at him to frighten him, but that the shot accidentally hit him.
In sentencing, Mr Justice Paul Carney said it was the most difficult matter he had had to deal with in more than 14 years on the bench.
Mr Nally’s legal team claim the trial judge’s decision to direct the jury to find the accused guilty of manslaughter, having failed to agree a conviction for murder, could be questioned.
They also argue that he refused to allow them to consider a full defence argument of self-defence which could have seen him walk free.
