Trinity College Dublin said it’s “premature” to comment on whether it will allow a lecturer cleared of murder to return to work.
Diarmuid Rossa Phelan, 56, was found not guilty last week of murdering 35-year-old Keith Conlon. He shot him dead on his property at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, South Dublin, in February 2022.
A jury of nine men and three women agreed with the defence that Mr Phelan was entitled to defend himself when he came under threat on his own land. He was told he was free to go – and is now able to resume his duties as a senior barrister.
However, when asked whether Mr Phelan can also return to his duties as an associate professor lecturing at Trinity, a spokesperson would not be drawn. A spokeswoman said: “It’s premature to comment, I’m afraid.”
During the course of his trial the court heard Mr Phelan was due to teach at the college on the day he shot Mr Conlon. Originally from South Dublin, he had been teaching on the College Green campus since 1994, with disciplines in European Union and Competition Law.
Keith Conlon.
He was working three days a week lecturing undergraduate and post-graduate students, with meetings on the other days. The defendant told the court that entirety of his Trinity salary went towards independent home-care for his mother, costing over €100,000 a year, which the court heard was in accordance with his late father’s wishes.
The jury had heard that on the day in question three men – Mr Conlon, Kallum Coleman and Robin Duggan – had trespassed on a wooded area of Mr Phelan’s land while engaged in the illegal blood sport of badger baiting.
In his Garda interview, he told detectives he became concerned about a lurcher dog running loose towards his sheep. He shot it with his Winchester rifle, when three men immediately “exploded” from the woods and began threatening him.
Mr Phelan said he was shaking with fear and had “scrambled” up a bank to get away but when Mr Conlon and Mr Coleman kept coming he believed they were “coming to fulfil the threats they had made”.
As they got closer, Mr Phelan shouted at the trespassers on his farm to “get back” before he fired three shots from his Smith & Wesson revolver. He said he was “stunned when one man went down”.
Mr Conlon, from Kiltalown Park in Tallaght, South Dublin, was critically injured and died at Tallaght University Hospital two days later.
Mr Phelan’s defence team insisted the third bullet accidentally hit the deceased through a combination of factors including an unintended deviation in the alignment of the gun as a result of the repeated firing under stress and Mr Conlon’s movement uphill.
Counsel argued it was possible the deceased had walked up the incline into a shot intended to clear his head. The defence also claimed where Mr Conlon was hit could have happened by him turning his head and not his body.
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