A Supreme Court judgment has concluded that John Diver’s conviction for the murder of his wife Geraldine Diver should be quashed and a retrial ordered because of serious errors concerning Garda interviews and evidence attributed to the couple’s children.
Geraldine Diver was strangled in her Renault Clio outside a builder’s yard in West Dublin on 2 December 1996. John Diver was convicted of her murder in November 2000 and received the mandatory life sentence.
The prosecution case included evidence from teenage neighbour Paul Maher, who identified Diver as being in the back of Geraldine’s car shortly before it reached the builder’s yard. However, Maher’s stated timing could not have been precisely correct because video evidence showed Geraldine had not yet left the Coombe Hospital at the time he initially gave.
Diver’s two children gave evidence that their father had been at home apart from brief trips to buy food. Their timings were difficult to reconcile with him being at the builder’s yard during the period when the murder occurred.
Mr Justice Hardiman found that the jury had been allowed to assess the children’s credibility using alleged earlier Garda statements which had not been properly proved in evidence. The children themselves disputed the accounts attributed to them.
Separate problems arose from Garda interviews with Diver. Two interviews were entirely unrecorded, including one lasting about an hour and a quarter during which he consistently denied involvement. Other interview notes omitted questions, timings and contextual material. Mr Justice Hardiman described the failures as grave, obvious and deliberate and said Gardaí were not entitled to selectively record incriminating material while omitting denials.
Although Maher’s identification evidence was potentially very strong, the judgment held that the court could not be sure the jury would have reached the same verdict without the improperly handled evidence.
Mr Justice Hardiman therefore concluded that the conviction should be quashed and a retrial directed.