Judgment is merely a temporary respite, says family of victims

THE family of murder victims Anne and Annie Gillespie welcomed yesterday's judgment, but said it was only a temporary respite from the prospect of Gallagher's eventual release.

"We're very glad and very relieved, but it's only for the meantime," said Mrs Noreen Crumlish, sister of Annie Gillespie, who was shot dead together with her daughter, Anne, by John Gallagher in 1988.

The temporary releases which Gallagher is to be allowed are "another privilege he shouldn't have", she added. "If we never saw him again, we wouldn't mind, but he'll be back in Lifford for weekends before long."

He has said he would go abroad when released, she continued. "But what country would have him? The only other country he'll be going to is Northern Ireland, when he's passing through it on his way home.

Meanwhile, politicians have called for new legislation to deal with the issue of insanity pleas and subsequent recoveries under treatment.

The Fianna Fail spokesman for law reform, Mr Willie O'Dea, said the present legal procedures for dealing with the issue of insanity were in a state of "dangerous confusion".

Our present laws on sanity dated from 1843, he said. "In effect, we are dealing with a law which ignores a century and a half of advances in psychiatric medicine." The Government should legislate now so that no other family would endure the "anxiety and mental torture" which the Gillespie family had suffered during the recent proceedings, he added.

The Progressive Democrats said the ruling highlighted again the need for new legislation dealing with insanity and the law. Mr Michael McDowell said it was time to integrate current psychiatric understanding of mental illness with the "complex knot of legal problems" surrounding the insanity plea.