Human Rights Commission offers no comment when asked about legal victory for Graham Dwyer – a notorious killer with ‘a huge urge to rape and kill’

The case in question is that of Graham Dwyer, an architect with a sexual fetish for stabbing, who killed childcare worker Elaine O’Hara in 2012.

She was last seen alive in Dublin, before her remains showed up on a mountain to the south of the city.

Dwyer pleaded not guilty to murder, but was convicted and jailed for life in 2015.

The pair had met online and began an S&M-style relationship.

According to a report of court proceedings in the Irish Independent, prosecutors told his murder trial that text messages recovered from Dwyer to his victim included this: “My urge to rape, stab or kill is huge. You have to help me control or satisfy.”

There were many, many other messages like it.

EU LAW OVER-RIDES DOMESTIC LAW:

Dywer is appealing against his conviction.

But he also took a seperate case to the EU Court of Justice about the use of evidence against him.

This resulted in a ruling on Tuesday that the Irish state’s use of mobile phone evidence against Dwyer had been inadmissible.

Data held in the architect’s work phone had been used at his trial to show he was at specific places at particular times.

The ruling by the European court says that Irish law is incompatible with EU law, which over-rides it.

The judgment states: “EU law precludes the general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data relating to electronic communications for the purposes of combating serious crime.”

The Irish Independent reports that this “will bolster Dwyer’s chances” of overturning his conviction.

It could also have “far-reaching consequences for the investigation of serious crime across the continent”.

The judgment came just one day after the HCR declared its intention to “ensure that rights protection is not diminished as a result of the UK having left the EU [and] ensure that Northern Ireland keeps pace with changes in European Union equality laws”.

Full story at this link: Public body declares that in spite of Brexit Northern Ireland must ape the EU’s laws on human rights – or it will launch court fights

The News Letter therefore asked the HCR whether, if Northern Ireland tried to depart from these EU rules about phone evidence, would the HRC fight such a change?

It said it will not comment because “this case is not within the jurisdiction of NI”.

More from this reporter:

There is ‘no evidence’ that Irish speakers are ‘marginalised second-class citizens’ says former education minister

‘The tentacles of the Northern Ireland Protocol reach way beyond mere cargo and ports – and you could see the problems coming from outer space’

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