Probe into drug addict’s false murder confession

GARDA conduct is to come under the spotlight again after the Government yesterday announced an inquiry into how homeless drug addict Dean Lyons falsely confessed to the murders of two women.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell will shortly establish a commission of investigation into the case, to be headed by senior counsel George Bermingham.

Separately, an expert group will examine garda practices because of the concerns the case raised.

Sylvia Shields, 59, and Mary Callinan, 61, both patients of St Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin, were stabbed to death on the same night in March 1997.

Mr Lyons was interviewed by gardaí and later charged. Later that year, Mark Nash was arrested after murdering his girlfriend’s sister and her husband in Roscommon. While detained, he made a statement admitting to the Grangegorman murders.

Despite this, Mr Lyons remained in prison until April 1998, when the charges were dropped. He died two years later of a drugs overdose. Nash later retracted his statement confessing to the murders.

The investigation will examine how Mr Lyons came to make his confession. It will also consider if the gardaí adequately assessed that confession, both before and after he was charged. Finally, it will probe the “adequacy of the information provided by the garda to the DPP.” Mr McDowell said it had to be ascertained if the DPP was informed of the question marks around the confession.

The commission will have the power to take sworn evidence, and Mr McDowell expected it to report within four to six months of its establishment.

Meanwhile, the expert group will conduct “a more general review of relevant garda practices” in the wake of the Lyons case.

The focus will be on how gardaí assess the fitness of persons to be interviewed, if officers avoid the use of leading questions with vulnerable suspects, how they corroborate admissions prior to the charging of suspects and how they record statements and confessions.