Gilligan loses bid to overturn drug trafficking conviction

DUBLIN criminal John Gilligan has lost his last legal bid to overturn his conviction on drug trafficking charges.

In an important judgement addressing, for the first time, issues relating to the admissibility of evidence from persons involved in a State Witness Protection Programme (WPP), the five-judge Supreme Court yesterday unanimously rejected all Gilligan’s grounds of appeal and set down criteria regarding how evidence from persons in a WPP should be treated.

Giving judgement, Ms Justice Susan Denham said the issue at the core of the appeal was the credibility of the evidence against Gilligan of three accomplices of his - Charles Bowden, Russell Warren and John Dunne - who were all participants in a WPP.

She found their evidence at Gilligan’s trial before the non-jury Special Criminal Court (SCC) was properly treated by that court and rejected Gilligan’s argument that the WPP as applied in this case resulted in unfair procedures and breached his right to a fair trial.

While aspects of the procedures followed by the gardaí in the case compromised the evidence of Bowden and Warren, they did not compromise the entire criminal process system, she held.

Those “shortcomings” - failure by gardaí to record meetings and the return to Bowden and Warren of monies seized by gardaí and held by the SCC to be proceeds of crime - were regretted by the SCC and she endorsed that view.

In an ideal world, the judge remarked, there “would be no need for witnesses who were in a WPP or who were accomplices of an accused”.

However, the development of a WPP was “a reflection of the need arising in our times” and “a consequence of a society where there are gangs, drug trafficking, violence and death and very significant sums being made from criminal activity.” The State was entitled to establish a WPP and it was for the courts to ensure a fair trial.

This case involved the first WPP in the history of the State. The court will decide at a later date whether it has jurisdiction to hear an appeal by Gilligan against the severity of his 20-year sentence.

Gilligan was initially jailed for 28 years in 2001 by the SCC but that sentence was reduced by the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) to 20 years. Any appeal against sentence will not be heard before next year.

Gilligan’s appeal came before the Supreme Court last July after the CCA referred to that court two points of law to be determined:

The circumstances and the extent to which evidence from witnesses in a State WPP is inadmissible in a trial in due course of law;

The nature of corroborative evidence required from accomplice witnesses who have participated in a WPP.

Ms Justice Denham said the constitutional root of Gilligan’s case was that he is entitled, under Article 38.1 of the Constitution, to a trial in due process of law.

After a detailed analysis of the evidence given by Bowden, Warren and Dunne, Ms Justice Denham upheld the SCC’s approach to that evidence. She held the evidence of accomplices, subject to an appropriate warning, may be relied upon by a trial court. She felt the same approach could be taken to a witness who is, or will be, in a WPP.

Gilligan did not travel from Portlaoise prison for yesterday’s judgement.