Man appeals conviction for murder of Dublin teenager

A man who was found guilty of the murder of Dublin teenager, Daniel McAnaspie, over a decade ago is to appeal his conviction for the crime.

Richard Dekker (34) made legal history in 2017 when he became the first person ever to be convicted for murder after having previously been acquitted of the offence.

Dekker, from Blanchardstown, was found guilty of the murder of Daniel McAnaspie – a 17-year-old youth who had been in the care of the HSE before his death – by a unanimous jury verdict following a trial at the Central Criminal Court in March 2017.

Dekker had pleaded his innocence of the murder of the teenager at Tolka Valley Park, Blanchardstown on February 26th, 2010.

Daniel had been out socialising in Blanchardstown that evening and met a number of people, including Dekker, and went drinking.

The last time Daniel was seen alive was when two of his friends tried to persuade him to go home when they were leaving at around 4am but he insisted on staying out.

His badly decomposed body was found by a farmer in a deep drain on farmland in Rathfeigh, Co Meath two months later – around 35kms from where he had been killed.

A post mortem showed he had been stabbed to death.

Dekker claimed another man in their company had killed Daniel with a pair of garden shears.

Dekker’s conviction was the first time an accused person had been retried under the Criminal Justice Procedure Act 2010 which allows the State to retry a person even after they have been acquitted.

Dekker had previously been acquitted of the charge of murdering Daniel at a trial in 2013 when a judge directed that there was not enough evidence to put the case to a jury.

The State applied to the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling to allow a re-trial of Dekker on the charge of murdering the teenager to go ahead.

At the Court of Appeal on Monday, counsel for Dekker, Eoghan Cole BL, said the point raised in the appeal would be “dispositive”.

“In other words, if the appeal is successful, there would not logically be a retrial,” said Mr Cole.

The president of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice George Birmingham, fixed January 21th, 2022 as the hearing date for the appeal.

In April 2017, another Blanchardstown man, Trevor Noone, was sentenced to 13 years prison after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter for his role in Daniel’s death.