Accused told gardaí he stabbed women during house break-in

A jury has heard that a man on trial for a 1997 double murder gave a statement to gardaí, admitting he stabbed two women after breaking into a house .

Detective Garda Gerard Dillon, now retired, who was attached to Mill Street Garda Station in Galway on the evening of August 16, 1997, yesterday read a written statement given by the accused, Mark Nash, in Galway on August 17, 1997. In the statement, he wished to volunteer information in relation to a double murder he “committed in Dublin five months ago”.

Mr Nash, with last addresses at Prussia St and Clonliffe Rd in Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the double murder of Sylvia Shields, aged 59, and Mary Callanan, aged 61, who lived in sheltered accommodation, in a house attached to St Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin 7, between March 6 and March 7, 1997.