John Gilligan attends girlfriend's drug hearing in 'very noble gesture' of support
John Gilligan was not called as a defence witness in Sharon Oliver's drugs case on Tuesday. Picture: SOLARPIX.COM
John Gilligan went back to court willingly on Tuesday to help his sick girlfriend defend a drug case he confessed to on Monday.
The veteran crime boss capped off a remarkable 24 hours which began with him escaping jail in a plea bargain deal to hear his girlfriend Sharon Oliver claim she knew nothing about his law-breaking.
The hearing took place at the same courthouse in Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca where Gilligan was told on Monday he was getting a suspended 22-month prison sentence instead of more than eight years behind bars after his lawyer thrashed out an unexpected plea agreement with Spanish state prosecutors who had initially demanded his near-decade incarceration.
On Tuesday, the 71-year-old used his first full day of freedom to show his support for Ms Oliver. More than 2,000 kilometres separated the couple — with Sharon giving evidence via video-link from hospital in the UK where she is awaiting a hernia operation.
Gilligan, who greeted waiting reporters as he entered court with a smile and the words ‘Good Morning’, sat with his arms folded on a bench just behind the raised TV screen his partner appeared on and had to make do with the sound of her voice.
The London-born expat was the only woman arrested as part of Operation Godfather in October 20, 2020, when Costa police smashed Gilligan’s cannabis and sleeping pill smuggling ring and found a gun, initially linked to journalist Veronica Guerin’s murder, hidden in his back garden.
Nearly 2kgs of cannabis worth €3,500 were found in the couple’s former home in Torrevieja when it was raided by police and prosecutor Carmen Millan told the Torrevieja-based Orihuela Criminal Court Number Two on Tuesday that 10,000 of the powerful prescription-only tablets heroin addicts use to help them sleep and numb pain were found “in plain sight” on a bed in the villa.
The court also heard police discovered more than 1,000 of the pills in Gilligan's partner's bag.
But Sharon, who is facing six years in prison if found guilty of two crimes of trafficking with cannabis as well as supplying and exporting medicines without permission, repeated several times: “I knew nothing” when she testified, although she only agreed to answer questions from her defence lawyer.
She denied any knowledge of the Spain to Ireland smuggled cannabis and pill consignments her partner has already confessed to that were prepared at the home they shared with Gilligan’s son Darren.
Asked if she knew about the pistol found by police she said: “No, nothing.” Questioned about the pills found in her bag, she told the court: “I have bowel disease and a huge hernia and the police took all my medication away from me.”
She added when asked at the end of the session if she wanted to have the last word: “I did nothing wrong.” Two police officers involved in the investigation said it was “obvious” she knew about the drug shipments.
One, referred to in court only by his badge number 66878, accused Sharon and Gilligan of touring chemists in the Vega Baja area of Alicante in and around where they lived to obtain pills they then smuggled abroad.
He said: “On September 23, 2020, John told his partner in an intercepted conversation there were 20,000 tablets at home and that was enough for three or four deliveries."
He went on to admit under cross-examination officers didn’t see Sharon actively participate in any courier runs or see her buy up pill stocks from chemists during covert surveillance.
A colleague, referred to by his police badge number 92095, added: “She was John Gilligan’s partner and obviously she was aware of the deliveries he made given the fact they went from their home. The drugs and pills we seized were for distribution and obviously not for personal use.”
Prosecutor Carmen Millan said in her closing speech before the judge retired to consider his verdict: “The conversation John Gilligan and Sharon had about the delivery of the 20,000 tablets shows she knew about the shipments.”
But her defence lawyer Aitor Esteban insisted: “It hasn’t been proven she actively participated in any of the crimes her partner has confessed to. Who was the speaker in that intercepted communication? John Gilligan. What did Sharon say? Nothing.”
Speaking outside court Mr Esteban, who also secured the plea bargain deal for the Gilligan on Monday, said: “John was here today to support his partner. I think it was a very noble gesture. He wanted to do what he could to try to ensure things go well for her.
“I didn’t call him as a defence witness because I didn't think it was necessary and I don’t know what credibility the judge would have given his witness testimony. But it may be that by just being there and not abandoning Sharon in her hour of need he’ll be of help to her.”
Court sources said they expected the judge to deliver his verdict within the next two weeks in writing.
The end of Tuesday’s trial coincided with the release of an 11-page written ruling outlining the suspended prison sentence and fines handed out to John Gilligan and seven accomplices who accepted the plea bargain deal on Monday.
Gilligan, who featured in the first of a three-part TV documentary about his life of crime last night, has been ordered to pay fines of just over €14,000 on top of his 22-month suspended prison sentence — nine months for the cannabis trafficking charge, nine months for illegal possession of a firearm and four months for exporting prescription-only drugs without licence.
The seven other men accused alongside him on the drugs and medicine supply and export charge, who included his son Darren, 47, and 51-year-old pal ‘Fat’ Tony Armstrong, were given suspended 18-month prison sentences. Four were born in Ireland and another two in the UK.
The written sentence, a fuller version of the shortened sentence delivered orally on Monday, stated as a proven fact that Gilligan’s modus operandi involved getting accomplices, including his son Darren, to provide him with drugs.
It added: “Once they had been obtained, he was the person in charge of preparing the parcels and sending them to Ireland.”
Two of the courier deliveries Darren and Ciaran Paul O’Hare, 35, made from a post office near Torrevieja were found to contain nearly 2kgs of cannabis worth just under €3,500 when they were intercepted by police. They were hidden among children’s toys and sandals and wrapped up in a beach towel.
Items seized from the home John Gilligan shared with his partner and son included a weighing scale, a vacuum packing machine and five mobile phones as well as the cannabis and pills marketed in Spain as Limovan, Datolan and Zoplicona.
A total of 27,723 of the prescription-only pills were seized during the police operation.
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