Some time soon, perhaps this week, the Court of Criminal Appeal will decide whether or not to overturn Catherine Nevin's conviction for murdering her husband Tom in 1996. Whatever the result of the appeal, it has raised very serious questions about the responsibility of the media in Ireland, writes Fintan O'Toole
If the court finds that Catherine Nevin was wrongly convicted, parts of the media will bear real responsibility for a miscarriage of justice. If it confirms her guilt, we will nevertheless have to face the fact that a murderer might well have got off because the coverage of her case raised genuine doubts about her ability to get a fair trial.
The Nevin case is important because it marked a turning point in the tabloidisation of the Irish press. While Irish newspapers were traditionally very cautious about their coverage of crimes and court cases, the English tabloids have long thrived on lurid coverage. The combination of sex and violence, especially when it can be plugged into dark fears about female rapaciousness, has always been a sure winner.
In the Nevin case, which ran from the time of the murder in March 1996 until Catherine Nevin's conviction in April 2000, we saw for the first time the full incorporation of these values into Irish journalism.
The sheer volume of the coverage was vastly in excess of what would normally be expected for a murder trial. On the day after the verdict, for example, the Star devoted 14 pages to the case. Two whole books have been written about Catherine Nevin.
The reason why, in a country that now has a murder a week, this particular crime attracted so much attention is summed up in the title of the Star's special supplement and of one of the books: The Black Widow. The Nevin case was turned from a sordid crime into a sensational psychodrama. Catherine Nevin was transformed into a character from a bad movie, a succubus, a man-eating phantom.
Before Catherine Nevin was charged, there was extensive and sensational coverage hinting both at her guilt and at her alleged promiscuity. A thesis for the UCD Sociology Department by Robbie Sinnott highlights the disturbing degree to which broad insinuations about Catherine Nevin's alleged relationships with local gardaí and judicial figures appeared in the immediate aftermath of the murder.
Garda leaks were obvious. As early as March 24th, 1996, in the Sunday Independent, the late Veronica Guerin was able to give a detailed account of Catherine Nevin's confidential statement to the Garda. By early August, Paul Williams in the Sunday World could reveal, with remarkable accuracy, the core of the Garda case against Nevin - that she had attempted to hire members of the IRA to kill her husband - even though she had not yet been charged.
A few weeks later, Liz Allen in the Sunday Independent was reporting of the still unnamed Catherine Nevin that "this woman's associations with certain Garda members are a source of regular conversation amongst locals in the area" and suggesting that these connections were the reason she had not yet been charged. Long before she was actually accused of her husband's murder, the image of Catherine Nevin as a vamp who was using her sexual power to evade justice was well established.
The reporting of the trial itself was well summed up by Kathy Sheridan in this newspaper, who summarised it in phrases taken from reports in the tabloids: "She was the one with the 'scarlet fingernails' and 'scanty underwear'; the one who used her 'silken boudoir' within her 'den of sleaze' to 'bed a bevy of sex-hungry men' while 'plotting her husband's murder'; the one who turned up for the verdict, smiling, clad in 'a clinging black dress, slit to the thigh'."
THE peculiar circumstances of Nevin's trial hugely increased the risk that all of this could prejudice the jury. Her first two trials collapsed. The third jury, which convicted her, had thus been exposed to much of this lurid coverage before it heard the case. Ms Justice Carroll, who presided, described some of the colour pieces written about the first trial as "the worst kind of tabloid journalism designed solely to sell newspapers without any regard to Mrs Nevin's dignity as a human person".
Thirteen of the 64 potential jurors for the third trial admitted that they did not have an open mind on the case and were excused. Ten of the 22 who were actually called for the case did the same. It is at least a reasonable possibility that some of those who thought they were unbiased were in fact unconsciously influenced by the lurid coverage. Though this would not matter greatly if the case against Catherine Nevin were watertight, the fact that she was convicted on circumstantial evidence makes it particularly disturbing.
If Catherine Nevin murdered her husband, it is appalling to think that she could get away with it because of prejudicial media reporting. If she did not, it is even more appalling to think that she could be convicted because of her clothes, her fingernails, her sexuality and her general demeanour. Either way, the media industry, which rightly demands that others account for their use of power, has a lot to account for.
fotoole@irish-times.ie