Department says Gallagher `legally a threat'

Double murderer John Gallagher (34) was still considered a risk, a spokesman for the Department of Justice said last night, despite assertions last week by the director of the Central Mental Hospital, Mr Charles Smith, that he was not.

An advisory committee which was due to report to the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, on Gallagher's case later in the year had yet to decide whether he no longer posed a threat. "Technically and legally he is still a threat," said the spokesman.

The Garda also said yesterday that Gallagher would be arrested and recommitted if he ever returned to the State. A spokesman said the force had orders to return him to the hospital if he was located in the State, since his failure to return last Sunday.

Legally Gallagher remains a patient at the hospital on the order of the High Court, undergoing treatment as set out by the advisory committee. He can only be legally discharged from that programme if the Minister for Justice so decides.

Gallagher had been detained at the hospital in Dundrum, Dublin, since 1989 when he was found guilty but insane of the murder of Anne Gillespie (18) and her mother, Annie Gillespie, at Sligo General hospital in 1988. Anne Gillespie had recently ended a relationship with him.

Since his failure to return, the Garda had put out an international alert with Interpol and Europol that Gallagher was sought in the Republic. British police arrested him on Friday afternoon outside a supermarket in Oxford and detained him under the Mental Health Act.

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police confirmed yesterday that the arrest was prompted by a call from an Irish journalist. Asked how they knew he would be in the Mercedes car, the spokesman said: "There was press involvement". The News Of The World newspaper had set up a rendezvous with Gallagher on the pretext of an interview and informed police of the meeting. The paper reported yesterday that Gallagher had agreed to sell his story for £12,000.

Gallagher was examined by two psychiatrists and a doctor. Finding him sane, the police released him after seven hours. He is reported to have returned to London where he is said to be staying with a friend he met at the Central Mental hospital.

Having been found guilty but insane of the two murders, Gallagher was technically acquitted. Had extradition procedures been initiated against him when he had been found in England, therefore, it is unclear whether they would have succeeded.

Under British law an extradition order cannot be granted unless there is either a prime facie case or a conviction in place.

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said at the weekend that he would reform the law surrounding insanity pleas in murder trials. The "ground-breaking legislation" would be brought forward in the forthcoming Dail session, he said.

The regime or programme under which Gallagher was being treated at the hospital was increasingly liberal, a Department spokesman said. The advisory committee's last meeting was in May last year and it had further liberalised Gallagher's program me, to allow him to work and to live in a self-contained unit in the grounds of the hospital.

The committee was due to meet again later this year. Gallagher remains therefore legally a patient at the Central Mental Hospital who has yet to complete a programme of treatment as ordered by the High Court.

The programme was designed "to provide objective evidence as to whether or not he was a risk to the public or private interest". The advisory committee had not yet concluded that he was not, the spokesman said.