Nevin loses conviction appeal

CATHERINE Nevin has lost a bid to have her murder conviction declared a miscarriage of justice.

The Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) yesterday dismissed her application for a certificate of miscarriage of justice saying it was reiterating the view of the original trial judge who said she had her husband Tom Nevin, aged 55, assassinated and then she attempted to assassinate his character.

The CCA said her application relying on newly discovered facts are “all collateral matters” which did not directly go to the question of who killed Tom Nevin.

In her application, Nevin claimed newly discovered facts showed her conviction to be unsafe. Those facts, she said, regarded the credibility of three prosecution witnesses — William McClean, Gerry Heapes, and John Jones — and possibly also to the credibility and connections of another State witness, Patrick Russell.

She claimed those new facts were contained in Special Branch files relating to these four witnesses, and relating to the deceased Tom Nevin This information had been handed in to the trial judge who refused to admit it to evidence because of lack of relevancy, it was also claimed.

There were also newly discovered facts, she said, that McClean had paramilitary connections at the time of her trial and/or was a paid State informer since 1974 and that Heapes and Jones were also paid informers at the time of her trial.

The failure of the DPP and/or the trial judge to make adequate disclosure of this newly discovered material rendered the trial inherently flawed, she claimed.

The CCA said there was nothing in the garda material that gave “the slightest credence, direct or indirect, express or implied” to the allegation that the witnesses were informers.

The court recorded that the case made by Mrs Nevin was in certain important particulars “very vague”.

In relation to McClean, it had been claimed on behalf of Nevin that her solicitor had been informed by a “high level journalist” that the three main state witnesses were “high level state informers”.

“This is hearsay of the rankest sort, vague in the extreme and simply irrelevant to the issues on this application,” the ruling stated.

However, Nevin’s solicitor, Anne Fitzgibbon said she would be taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.