Mrs Catherine Nevin denied yesterday that she had "cleared the premises for the night in order to facilitate the assassination of her husband". She had made no arrangement with staff at Jack White's Inn in relation to them returning to the premises after a disco that night, she said during her final day of evidence in the witness-box.
Yesterday was the 28th day of the murder trial before Ms Justice Mella Carroll in the Central Criminal Court.
Mrs Nevin has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her husband, Tom Nevin (54), on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, near Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow. She denies that on dates in 1989 she solicited Mr John Jones, that in or about 1990 she solicited Mr Gerry Heapes, and that on a date unknown in 1990, at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, she solicited Mr William McClean to murder her husband.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, for the prosecution, challenged Mrs Nevin yesterday on a number of "serious allegations" she had made about Garda officers while making a statement to the Garda about another complaint.
Mr Charleton said that a number of what he called "bizarre" allegations made by Mrs Nevin to a superintendent investigating another complaint showed that she had "no regard for the truth whatsoever".
Counsel quoted from a document Mrs Nevin's defence team has put into evidence to go to the jury on her behalf. The jury has heard that the document is the subject of a defamation case taken against Mrs Nevin by a detective garda in 1996.
Mrs Nevin claimed that she had made a "confidential statement" to a superintendent. Counsel asked what was confidential about it. It accused gardai of "a number of fantastic crimes", he said. He cited some of the allegations. One was that a detective garda had written a statement for a witness in a case being taken against Mr Tom Nevin for assault. In it he allegedly told the witness that if he did not sign it he would be charged with crashing another man's car.
Mrs Nevin said she was only telling the superintendent what the witness had said to her.
Mr Charleton read from a statement made on May 25th, 1993, in which Mrs Nevin said: "I had no conversation with [the witness] about my husband's case. Watch my lips, I had no conversation at all."
"I suggest you have been caught out in another gigantic lie," counsel suggested to Mrs Nevin. She denied this and repeated that she had only been telling the superintendent what she herself had been told.
Another allegation made by her was that a Garda officer had "torched" his house for insurance purposes because he was said to be "too strapped for cash" to pay a builder. Mr Charleton said this suggested that Mrs Nevin had no great regard for the truth. "Whatever suits you is what you will say."
Mrs Nevin said she made no complaint in relation to a house fire, but when a superintendent had spoken to her about an alleged sexual assault on a relative of hers by a garda in a patrol car she had told him "everything he wanted to know".
Mrs Nevin ended her evidence by denying that she told Gerry Heapes, John Jones and William McClean that she was not getting on with her husband and that she wanted him dead.
She gave evidence earlier that when she went to sleep on the night of the killing only the light on the landing outside her bedroom was switched on. She said that when she was being tied up on her bed the bedroom door was "slightly ajar".
Mr Charleton asked her to comment on how likely it was that a raider would search for jewellery in a room without light. "I didn't see the person who was tearing the room asunder. All I know is about the person who was tying me up, I don't know about the other person," Mrs Nevin said.
She was also cross-examined about a discrepancy between her evidence and what she told gardai about a knife she alleged was held by the raider who tied her up. In an interview with Det Garda Joe Collins, she said that the man who tied her up was holding a knife: "I just saw the blade, a small blade." She said that she had seen only the reflection of the knife, which was "thin and long".
Counsel put it to Mrs Nevin that the reason the small blade became a long blade was that "there wasn't any knife, there wasn't any blade".
Mrs Nevin said that if she had made a mistake in her interview with Det Garda Collins it was because the conversation occurred just after she had been told that her husband had been killed.
She was asked why she claimed that her bedroom had been ransacked when the evidence of a fingerprint expert, Det Garda John O'Neill, was that the drawers found on the floor had prints on them consistent with someone having lifted them from the side and put them on the floor. The person who lifted the drawers had been wearing fine leather or light surgical gloves, Det Garda O'Neill had said.
Mrs Nevin said she could not explain why similar prints had not been found on a jewellery box found scattered downstairs.
Mr Charleton said: "Mrs Nevin, let's get to the point. Who was the one person in the premises, if there was a raid that night, that could have helped you?"
Mrs Nevin replied: "I am sorry, I don't understand the question."
Counsel asked why she had not gone into her husband's bedroom. "`I have absolutely no recollection of going out of the bedroom or going down the stairs," she replied.
Counsel again asked why she had not gone to her husband's bedroom, where there was a panic alarm. "It was where he slept, he was your husband, you say you loved him," he said.
Mrs Nevin replied: "I have no recollection of going down the stairs . . . Tom always said if anything ever happened, not to worry about him, he'd always take care of himself."
"But, Mrs Nevin, he could have taken care of you," Mr Charleton said.
Mrs Nevin repeated that her husband had always said not to worry about him. "I loved my husband," she said in reply to the suggestion that she had not gone into the bedroom because she knew that Tom Nevin had been shot by raiders in a killing arranged by her.