THE COURT of Criminal Appeal is expected to issue a key ruling today regarding Catherine Nevin’s final attempt to have her murder conviction declared a miscarriage of justice.
Ms Nevin is seeking to access a Garda file which her legal team says could cast doubt on the credibility of a State witness who gave evidence during her trial.
She is serving a life sentence for the murder of her husband Tom at their pub, Jack White’s Inn, Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow, in March 1996. She was also convicted of soliciting three men – Gerry Heapes, William McClean and John Jones – to kill her husband. The three judges of the court are expected to make a ruling on whether a Garda file relating to Mr McClean should be disclosed, and whether it is relevant to Ms Nevin’s grounds for appeal.
Ms Nevin’s lawyers say this file or “suspect antecedent form” shows Mr McClean had associations with members of the IRA and INLA.
This document, they have argued, represents a “newly discovered fact”, and they maintain its existence was only brought to their attention through a newspaper article published eight years after their client was jailed for life.
In their statement of grounds for appeal, Ms Nevin’s legal team have argued that the unavailability of these files could have played a crucial role in affecting the minds of the jury, and this rendered the trial so flawed that the conviction of murder was a miscarriage of justice.
The principal investigating officer in the murder case, Det Sgt Fergus O’Brien, told the three-judge appeal court earlier this year the file was “worthless”. It held details on Mr McClean and “his buddies”, but he said it had “no intelligence value”.
Ms Nevin’s appeal suffered a blow this year when the court refused to grant disclosure of other information which her legal team claimed could undermine the credibility of the three State witnesses in the case.
Her lawyers had sought access to material relating to the Barron Inquiry into the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings. This material, they said, made reference to an unnamed man who had links with the UVF and was staying in the Four Courts Hotel in Dublin ahead of the bombings.
Nevin’s legal team have said before the Court of Criminal Appeal this was a reference to McClean. The court declined a production order.
Ms Nevin’s lawyers are seeking an order requiring the Director of Public Prosecutions to answer whether Mr McClean, Mr Heapes and Mr Jones were ever State informers, and whether Mr McClean had paramilitary connections.