That led to a strong rebuke from a judge on the appeal panel, and a new lawsuit from Hand against McGregor, O’Reilly, and Cummins for “malicious abuse of the process of the court.”
“The conduct of Mr. McGregor — in publicly introducing evidence which fundamentally called into question the correctness of the jury’s verdict and the testimony of Ms. Hand which had led to it, only to abandon that evidence when it was about to be tested — is behavior which deserves to be marked by a palpable sign of the court’s displeasure and disapproval,” judge Brian O’Moore said during the appeal hearing.
The appeals panel confirmed that they were passing the matter on to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation to see if the matter reached the criminal standard for perjury.
As for Hand, she’s suing for aggravated and punitive damages as well as legal costs.