Gilligan sentence over sweet-shop row quashed

Convicted crime boss John Gilligan had a five-year sentence imposed for threatening to kill two prison officers in a tuck shop row quashed today.

The Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the sentence after finding that it was not proportionate when combined with the 20-year sentence he is already serving for importing cannabis resin.

Gilligan was in court surrounded by tight security to hear his counsel Mr Michael O' Higgins SC successfully argue that the five-year sentence was too high.

The court will impose a new sentence on June 15 next for the two offences of threatening to kill two prison officers just one week after he was jailed for drugs offences in 2001.

Gilligan was initially jailed for 28 years by the Special Criminal Court in 2001 but that sentence was reduced by the Court of Criminal Appeal to 20 years.

After a lengthy trial, which began in late 2000, the Special Criminal Court cleared Gilligan in 2001 of the murder of journalist Veronia Guerin in June 1996 and also acquitted him of firearms charges.

Gilligan was convicted of possession of an estimated 20,000 kilogrammes of cannabis resin over a two-year period. He is due to be released from prison in 2011.

He was given a five-year sentence for threatening to two kill two prison officers by the Special Criminal Court in June 2002 and the court ordered it to run concurrently with the sentence already imposed for the drugs offences.

The court was told that Gilligan had told prison officers Martin Ryan and Declan O' Reilly that he would kill them and their families after he had a row with them over the opening of the prison tuck shop.

The prison officers had refused to open the tuck shop after Gilligan demanded to buy sweets for his lawyers, who were waiting for a meeting with him.

Today, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding at the three-judge court, affirmed the convictions but said that the trial court should have had regard to the proportionality of the overall sentence, initially 28 years plus five years.

She said that the court was satsified that in all the circumstances the overall sentence was not proportionate and the court quashed the five-year prison sentence.

The Supreme Court in a judgment last year held there was evidence before the Special Criminal Court to justify its conclusions that Gilligan, Charles Bowden, Paul Ward, Brian Meehan, Shay Ward and Peter Mitchell were ``a gang'' engaged in drug trafficking; that Gilligan was the ``prime mover'' in the importation of cannabis resin into the country, the ``supreme authority'' among the gang members and ``the largest beneficiary'' of the proceeds of the sale of cannabis resin, which Gilligan was responsible for importing.