Paper must pay €75k over contempt before Nash trial

The Sunday World has been given one month to pay €75,000 for contempt of court after it called serial killer Mark Nash a “psycho” and “Pulp Fiction-style killer” before he had gone on trial for a second double-murder charge.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy gave his judgment at the Central Criminal Court yesterday after hearing from Brendan Grehan, prosecuting, that the newspaper had printed articles about a notorious killer in the run-up to his trial.

Mark Nash, aged 42, had been a suspect for a murder in Britain and had been convicted of a double murder in Roscommon when he went on trial for another double-murder in Grangegorman in Dublin. The 1997 murders of Mary Callanan, 61, and Sylvia Shiels, 60, attracted a lot of media attention and Mr Nash was charged in 2009.