Michael Mongan was jailed for 14 years for armed raid on Co Derry family’s home
JUDGES have refused to overturn the conviction of a man jailed for an iron bar and pistol-butt attack on a family in their Co Derry home.
Lawyers for Michael Mongan claimed there were flaws in how a pensioner and her teenage grandson both identified him as having battered them during a botched robbery.
But judges in the Court of Appeal rejected claims that their evidence impacted on the fairness of the trial process and should have been excluded.
Dismissing the challenge, Lord Justice Coghlin said: “We are not persuaded that this conviction was in any respect unsafe.”
Mongan, 24, received a 14-year prison sentence for assaults on Theresa Convery, her teenage son Philip Convery and her bank manager son Martin Convery.
A jury at Derry Crown Court also found him guilty by a majority verdict of attempting to steal £10,000 and with driving while disqualified and without insurance.
The victims were attacked at their home on the Mayogall Road in south Derry in June 2012.
Two men had burst in armed with a gun and iron bar shouting: “Give us the money”.
One of the intruders was said to have threatened to take 70-year-old Theresa Convery with him before hitting her on the hips, arms and legs with an iron bar.
Philip tried to come to his grandmother’s rescue, only to be struck several times about the head and body with the iron bar.
The teenager, who had been revising for GCSE examinations at the time of the attack, sustained a fractured skull.
He underwent emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from the surface of his brain.
His uncle Martin also attempted to intervene and was hit both with the iron bar and with a firearm. He escaped and flagged down a passing motorist who alerted the police.
Mongan, formerly of White Rise in the Dunmurry area of Belfast, centred his attempt to overturn his convictions on how Viper identification procedures were handled.
His barrister argued that Theresa Convery’s evidence should only have been treated as a qualified identification of the defendant.
Proper guidance should then have been given to the jury on the weight to attach to it.
But Lord Justice Coghlin, sitting with Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan and Lord Justice Gillen, held that the grandmother’s evidence was admissible.
“Even if it was a qualified identification it supported and was consistent with a positive identification made by Philip Convery,” said Lord Justice Coghlin.
“We are of the opinion that even if the jury concluded that the evidence of Theresa Convery amounted to only a qualified identification, the absence of adequate directions in the particular circumstances would not have made any difference to the ultimate verdict.”
Mongan is now planning to appeal his 14-year sentence.