Colm Murphy verdict - Judicial errors erode confidence

COLM Murphy was granted bail in the Special Criminal Court yesterday, as a result of the quashing of his 2002 conviction for conspiring to cause the Omagh bombing in which 29 people were killed, including a woman pregnant with twins.

That outrage had the single highest casualty rate of the 30 years of the Troubles.

The Court of Criminal Appeal had found that the three judges at the original trial might not have taken sufficient steps to ensure that they were not prejudiced by tainted evidence that was allegedly falsified by two gardaí, who were also accused of uttering perjured testimony.