Gilligan puts feet up in dock and stares at ceiling as sentence is passed

John Gilligan, whose jail term will be dated from the day of his arrest in October 1996, put his feet up in the dock and stared at the ceiling as sentence was passed.

Judge O’Donovan said: "The court has no doubt at all but that you reaped staggering profits from the imports" which Gilligan arranged from Holland into Ireland between 1994 and 1996.

These profits were 'in inverse proportion to the misery' Gilligan had brought to countless families, the judge added.

Gilligan had acted "without any regard of the hurt that must have been caused by the avalanche of drugs".

"Never in the history of the state had one person been responsible for so much wretchedness to so many."

The judge hoped Gilligan’s massive ill-gotten gains - his gang is estimated to have brought £38m of drugs into the country - would be recovered by detectives.

He added that in view of the sentence he was imposing: "It is unlikely you will have the capacity to enjoy it (the profits)."

On the murder charge, the judge said the prosecution did not prove beyond all reasonable doubt their claim that Gilligan ordered Miss Guerin’s shooting in order to protect the lucrative drug empire she was threatening to expose in the pages of the Sunday Independent newspaper.

Miss Guerin, 37, died in a hail of bullets as she sat in her car at traffic lights on the outskirts of Dublin on June 26 1996.

Two men, Paul Ward and Brian Meehan have both been convicted for her murder, in 1998 and 1999 respectively.

Judge O’Donovan said: "While this court has grave suspicions John Gilligan was complicit in the murder of the late Veronica Guerin, the court has not been persuaded beyond all reasonable doubt by the evidence which has been adduced by the prosecution that this is so.

"And therefore the court is required by law to acquit the accused for that charge."

The only evidence of Gilligan’s role in the killing was from one of his former criminal associates, Russell Warren, currently under the state’s witness protection scheme and serving a five year sentence for money laundering and stealing the motorbike used in the assassination.

His evidence was 'so suspect' that it could not be relied upon unless independently corroborated - in the absence of such corroboration Gilligan was cleared of involvement in one of the countries most high profile murders.

Speaking outside the court, Miss Guerin’s brother Jimmy said he was disappointed by the verdict and added he could never forgive the killers.

Mr Gilligan's solicitor immediately announced his client's intention to appeal.