One of the teenagers who murdered 14-year-old Ana Kriegel was subjected to "manipulation and pressure" from gardai when he gave statements that were used to convict him, the Court of Appeal has heard.
James Dwyer SC, for the now 17-year-old who was named as Boy B during his trial, said that the prosecution relied heavily on those interviews and without them there would have been "almost no evidence against him". He said senior forensic psychologist Professor Susan Young had watched videos of the interviews and found they were "inadequate" and "inappropriate" for a 13-year-old boy given their duration, the use of manipulation and pressure, repetition and enactment.
The professor found that interviewing detectives engaged in an "overriding of caution" in the context of the defendant being a 13-year-old boy. Boy B's lawyers want to introduce Professor Young's report, which is supported by Professor Gisli Gudjonsson, as fresh evidence so that they can argue that the Garda interviews should not have been presented in evidence at his trial.
