Nevin challenges witness accounts

THE State has been ordered to explain why it is seeking legal privilege over documents wanted by ‘Black Widow’ Catherine Nevin in her fresh bid for freedom.

Lawyers for the convicted murderer appeared before the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday to apply for the discovery of documents they believe call into question the credibility of witnesses at her trial.

Nevin, 58, was convicted of murdering her husband, Tom, and three counts of conspiring to have him murdered in 2000.

Her initial appeal against her conviction was dismissed three years later.

But three judges at the appeal court said the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), James Hamilton, must submit in writing why he is seeking to withhold the documents.

The records, which came into the possession of the DPP after Nevin’s trial but before her appeal three years later, are understood to relate to three state witnesses in her trial: William McClean, John Jones and Gerard Heapes.

In her quest to claim her conviction should be quashed on the grounds of miscarriage of justice, Nevin wants to know if the trio were state informers.

Wearing a black suit, pink shirt and with her long blonde hair swept back, Nevin sat at the back of the court during the day-long hearing.

Barristers are also seeking to know if Mr McClean, who Nevin denied having an affair with, had paramilitary connections.

Hugh Hartnett, Senior Counsel for Nevin, told the court Mr McClean was an alleged suspect for the Dublin Monaghan Bombings and had connections with illegal paramilitary groups, including CIRA and INLA.

He requested the disclosure of various documents and materials relating to the 1974 blasts.

The barrister also referred to articles in the Sunday World and Village magazine which alleged Mr McClean was an informer for gardaí.

He told the court it had the power to order the reporters to reveal their sources – named as journalists Niamh O’Connor and Vincent Browne.

“Had this information been made available, it could have been used by the defence to undermine the credibility of Mr McClean and for fresh leads,” added Mr Hartnett.

But in an affidavit read to the court Detective Sergeant Fergus O’Brien, who investigated Mr Nevin’s murder, stated reports that Mr McClean was an informer had no evidential value.

The senior garda also said Mr McClean was not a suspect in the murder probe and was not an associate of Mr Nevin – adding the pair first met when the victim found Mr McClean in bed with his wife.

In April 2000 Nevin was jailed for life for the murder of her husband at Jack White’s Inn in Brittas Bay on March 19, 1996.

She was also convicted on three counts of soliciting three different men to kill her husband in 1989 and 1990, six years before his murder.

But the DPP, James Hamilton, is against handing over the documents which Nevin believes will clear her name.

Tom O’Connell, SC for the DPP, told the court the state wanted to disclose everything it could to the court but added the documents concerned were security files. “These documents are irrelevant,” he said.

“They were created under circumstances that I am not at liberty to disclose.

“These are security files. The basis for having them excluded was because theysimply weren’t relevant,” said Mr O’Connell.

Adjourning the case Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, presiding, said he also wanted any material relating to the three witnesses and for the DPP to explain its stance.

Mr O’Connell will argue the state’s case when the hearing is entered back into the court list.