Supreme Court dismisses Graham Dwyers final appeal

He had appealed on the grounds of having his rights breached in the retention of mobile phone data

Graham Dwyer will have to see out the rest of his life sentence for the murder of Elaine O’Hara after losing his latest attempt to overturn his conviction.

After losing all his arguments in the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court agreed to hear one final appeal as a matter of general public importance.

The issue for the judges was whether unlawfully obtained mobile phone evidence should have been allowed to go to the jury at trial.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that evidence of mobile phone data was admissible at Dwyer’s trial in 2015.

It means Dwyer has exhausted all legal options to escape his life sentence following an unanimous jury verdict nine years ago.

As the decision was announced, Ms O’Hara’s family members hugged in the court chamber.

Lawyers for Dwyer had argued that his rights were breached through a system of “mass surveillance” involving the retention of mobile phone data which was used to support his conviction.

The judgment delivered today noted that the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case was the content and timing of text messages and linking them to Dwyer.

Judges noted the attribution of those messages were “an essential building block” to the prosecution’s case and the evidence linking the phones to Ms O’Hara and Dwyer had not been challenged or contradicted.

As a result, even if the traffic and location data from the phones had been deemed inadmissible, the appeal would have been dismissed, the court said.

He had appealed on the grounds of having his rights under the European Charter of Fundamental Rights breached by the retention of his mobile phone data.