A Co Louth man who is seeking to stop his retrial on a conspiracy charge connected with the Real IRA bombing of Omagh has "suffered severely" since he was first arrested and charged more than eight years ago, the High Court was told today.
Mr Colm Murphy said in an affidavit that he was a "man of means" before his arrest but now his livelihood has been destroyed and his marriage broken down.
Mr Murphy (53), a building contractor and publican who is a native of Co Armagh but with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth, was freed on bail in 2005 after the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction and 14 year sentence for a conspiracy offence connected with the Real IRA bombing of Omagh in 1998 in which 29 people died.
The appeal court overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial after finding that the court of trial - the non-jury Special Criminal Court - had failed to give proper regard to altered Garda interview notes. It found there had been "an invasion of the presumption of innocence" in the SCC judgment on Mr Murphy.
During his 25-day trial in 2001 and 2002, Mr Murphy had pleaded not guilty to conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
Mr Murphy has taken judicial review proceedings in the High Court aimed at stopping his retrial on grounds including that he is prejudiced by the "systemic delays" in prosecuting him.
That delay, he contends, included an inexcusable three year delay by the DPP in preferring perjury charges against two gardai who gave evidence at his first trial which opened in 2001.
The State denies that Mr Murphy is prejudiced by any delays and say he is debarred from raising delay because he agreed to many of the adjournments of the case.
On the second day of the hearing today, Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill said he would allow Mr Murphy's legal team to amend the grounds of the judicial review proceedings to take account of a report of a nuero-psychologist earlier this year which concluded that Mr Murphy suffered brain damage in a hit and run road traffic accident in 1988 and suffers from short term memory loss as a result.
Mr Murphy has claimed he is disadvantaged in that he cannot challenge his interviews by gardai over three days because of the manner of his impairment. In his affidavit read to the court yesterday, he said he has suffered severely since his arrest. Prior to his arrest, he was a businessman and building contractor with contracts. His business was thriving but that had been destroyed.
He was unemployed since 2005 and had also lost his family home and assets. Any assets which he had had were used to pay fees, Mr Murphy said. He was allowed unemployment benefit at the maxiumum rate after an invesatigation of his financial affairs, he added. Mr Murphy said his marriage also broke down following his arrest and he is now separated.
While in prison, he had transferred his beneficial interest in the family home to his estranged wife, he said . The stress of imprisonment had lead to the marriage breakdown, he added. The case continues tomorrow.