Judge criticises issuing of false passports

THE system of issuing passports in Britain is wide open to abuse, a Circuit Court judge said yesterday as it emerged that a man out on parole for murder could get a false passport and travel to Ireland to take part in drug smuggling.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin made these comments in Cork Circuit Criminal Court at the end of the €1.2bn cocaine trial that was peppered with references to false passports and passports issued to various aliases of some of the drug smugglers.

“It is significant the ease with which false passports can be obtained in Britain — three for Wanden, Wharrie has one, and mention of others. A judge should be slow to comment on facts outside the case — and all the more so on matters outside this jurisdiction — but it does appear that the system of issuing passports in Britain is wide open to abuse.

“It may not be easy to stop, there appears to be a gap at that level. It almost defies all, that a man out on licence from a murder conviction has his false passport and is involved in this crime,” the judge said.

Detective superintendent Seán Healy said Wharrie flew from Faro in Portugal to Ireland with a false passport issued to him in the name of Woodcraft.

Co-accused Martin Wanden, who has properties in South Africa, was travelling in and out of that country with passports in the name of Anthony Claude Lyndon and Steven Witsie.

After the first reference was made in the sentencing hearing yesterday to Wharrie’s Woodcraft passport, Judge Ó Donnabháin interjected: “You have a paroled murderer in England and he gets a passport.”

Wharrie’s murder conviction featured prominently in yesterday’s proceedings and his senior counsel made a number of comments in relation to it.

“Mr Wharrie has always maintained his innocence of that particular crime. There is a European arrest warrant [issued to the English authorities] in the High Court in Dublin in relation to the breach of licence [where Wharrie was paroled and left the country in breach of his conditions],” said Mr O’Leary.

He said the prosecution in the murder trial had made the case that the armed robbery and murder was a joint enterprise and that Wharrie was guilty by virtue of joint enterprise but it was never alleged by the prosecution in that case almost 20 years ago that Wharrie was “the triggerman”. Mr O’Leary SC said Wharrie had served 17 years of that life sentence.