Crime boss Gilligan has five-year sentence quashed

CONVICTED crime boss John Gilligan had a five-year sentence imposed for threatening to kill two prison officers in a tuck shop row quashed yesterday.

The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the sentence after finding it was not proportionate when combined with the 20 years he is already serving for importing cannabis resin.

Gilligan was in court to hear his counsel, Michael O’Higgins SC, successfully argue that the five-year sentence was too high.

The court will impose a new sentence on June 15 for the two offences of threatening to kill two prison officers just one week after he was jailed for the drugs offences in 2001.

Gilligan was jailed for 28 years by the Special Criminal Court in 2001 but that sentence was reduced on appeal to 20 years. After a trial which began in late 2000, the Special Criminal Court cleared Gilligan in 2001 of the murder of journalist Veronia Guerin in June 1996 and also acquitted him of firearms charges.

He was given the five-year sentence by the Special Criminal Court in June 2002 and the court ordered it to run concurrently with the sentence imposed for the drugs offences.

The court was told Gilligan had told prison officers Martin Ryan and Declan O’Reilly that he would kill them and their families after he had a row with them over the opening of the prison tuck shop. The officers had refused to open the shop after Gilligan demanded to buy sweets for his lawyers, who were waiting for a meeting with him.

Yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding at the three-judge court, affirmed the convictions but said the trial court should have had regard to the proportionality of the overall sentence. She said the court was satisfied the overall sentence was not proportionate and it quashed the five-year sentence.

The Supreme Court last year held there was evidence before the Special Criminal Court to justify its conclusions that Gilligan, Charles Bowden, Paul Ward, Brian Meehan, Shay Ward and Peter Mitchell were “a gang” engaged in drug trafficking; that Gilligan was the “prime mover” in the importation of cannabis resin into the country, the “supreme authority” among the gang members and “the largest beneficiary” of the proceeds of the sale of cannabis resin which Gilligan was responsible for importing.