Birmingham report: A homeless drug abuser would never have been charged with the murder of two women at Grangegorman in Dublin in 1997 if the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had been made aware of differences of opinion within the Garda investigation team about his confession, according to an official report published yesterday.
A commission of investigation, established by the Government, found the DPP had not been informed of misgivings on the part of some officers about confessions made by Dean Lyons to the murder of Mary Callinan and Sylvia Sheils at a house owned by the Eastern Health Board in March 1997.
Charges against Mr Lyons were dropped several months later, shortly after another man admitted the murders.
Mr Lyons died in September 2000 and in February 2005 the Garda Síochána apologised to his family and stated that they were satisfied he had no involvement in the murders.
In his report the sole member of the commission, George Birmingham SC, said that on the evening of June 26th, 1997, Mr Lyons had signed a statement of admission which, while not accurate in every respect, contained a great deal of detail relating to the nature of the wounds inflicted, the number and types of weapons used and the progress of the murderer through the house.
The commission concluded that the detail contained in the statement was provided to Mr Lyons as a result of a large number of very specific leading questions being asked by gardaí in the course of his interviews in detention. Mr Birmingham found that the communication of this information to Mr Lyons was inadvertent and that there was no deliberate wrongdoing.
The commission, however, criticised gardaí for the manner in which records of interviews with Mr Lyons were set down.
It maintained that this was not in keeping with official regulations or with procedures for the taking of statements.
"I am satisfied that the written records kept of the two interviews that were not video recorded are not at all comprehensive. The gardaí conducting these interviews have accepted that questions which would have served to provide specific detailed information could have been asked.
"While there may have been no intentional wrongdoing, the failure to keep a record of certain topics that were discussed and to record the fact that questions were asked and answered during the pre-midnight session is highly regrettable.
"The fact that the record is not complete was potentially misleading as to the true nature of the interviews and carried the risk of a miscarriage of justice," the commission said.
It found that the written record of one interview showed Mr Lyons being "specifically and directly corrected on a fundamental issue, namely the location of the stabbing of one victim and of him accepting and acting on the correction offered to him".
This interview note records one of the interviewing gardaí, Det Garda Dominic Cox, saying in response to an admission by Mr Lyon of stabbing one of the women: "I put it to you that this did not happen in the hallway but happened in the bedroom, would you agree."
The report says that in evidence to the commission, Det Garda Cox accepted that questions could have been asked such as: "Did you take knives out of a drawer?" "Was it four knives?" "Were they ordinary knives or were they sort of carving knives?"
The commission found that Mr Lyons had not been mistreated in any way by gardaí and that his admissions had not been produced by coercion or by bribery or inducement.
The commission maintained that Det Garda Cox, the less senior of the interview team, had misgivings about the nature of the reliance that could be placed on Mr Lyons's admissions.
It said that he referred to Mr Lyons as a "Walter Mitty". It added that these misgivings were not shared by his interviewing partner Det Sergeant Robert McNulty.
"These misgivings experienced by Det Garda Cox were expressed by him on two occasions on 26 July to members of the investigation team who had gathered during the course of the detention of Dean Lyons to review developments. The extent and nature of the misgivings were not recognised and acted upon by those present . . ." it stated. The commission said that prior to contacting the DPP the investigation team "did not address specifically either the significance or otherwise of the errors and falsehoods that were contained in the admissions, or the dramatic improvement in recollection over the course of the various interviews".
It said that it appeared the DPP had been given a good overview of the state of the evidence and was told where Mr Lyons appeared to be inaccurate or where his story had not been confirmed by gardaí. It maintained that the DPP's decision to proceed with a charge immediately against Mr Lyons had been "a somewhat borderline one".
"It is clear that had the attention of the DPP been drawn to the fact that there was a difference of view within the investigation team about the reliability of the admissions in the absence of corroboration, no charges would have been laid," it stated.
The commission found that after the emergence of the second suspect, the Grangegorman investigation team were initially convinced of the correctness of their arrest.
It said that a formal analysis of the admissions made by Mr Lyons only took place after the second suspect emerged and the Garda Commissioner appointed a senior officer to establish the truth.
The commission said that in October 1997 the Garda file to the Chief State Solicitor recommended proceeding both with the initial single murder charge against Mr Lyons as well as adding a further charge in relation to the second fatality.
The report stated that this decision was "extremely difficult to understand and even harder to justify".
"It is hard to see how, as of the date of the submission of the file, that any jury could have been invited to conclude they they ought to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of Dean Lyons," the commission found.
