THE HEARING of convicted murderer Catherine Nevin’s bid to gain access to documents which she claims are highly relevant to her application to have her conviction declared a miscarriage of justice will resume in March.
The hearing of Nevin’s preliminary application for the information had opened last April, but was adjourned for affidavits to be filed by both sides.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman fixed March 22nd for the resumption of the hearing.
Nevin (55) was found guilty in April 2000 of the murder of her husband at their pub, Jack White’s Inn, Brittas Bay, on March 19th, 1996. She was also convicted of soliciting three men – Gerry Heapes, William McClean and John Jones – to kill her husband in 1989 and 1990.
She is serving a life sentence on the murder charge and a concurrent seven years on the soliciting charges. Her appeal against conviction was dismissed in 2003.
In pursuit of her application for a certificate of a miscarriage of justice, Nevin is seeking a range of documents, including Garda security files on certain prosecution witnesses at her trial – Mr McClean, Mr Heapes and Mr Jones – and material relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974.
She claims the documents will assist her in undermining the witnesses’ credibility.
She also wants an order requiring the DPP to answer whether Mr McClean, Mr Heapes and Mr Jones were ever State informers and whether Mr McClean, with whom Nevin denied having an affair, had paramilitary connections.
She also want depositions in the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin- Monaghan bombings (the Barron report) which she claims identified Mr McClean as someone who stayed in the Four Courts Hotel between May 10th and 16th, 1974, and who made telephone calls and sent telegrams to Belfast and London.