A Supreme Court judge has rejected a claim that he made an error in an earlier judgment about forensic samples taken from Mark Nash’s jacket, saying the written appeal submissions did not make the distinction now relied on.
Justice Charleton delivered the judgment on 13 July 2017, in the context of Nash’s motion alleging error in the court’s earlier appeal judgment. The reported issue was whether tiny samples from Nash’s jacket had been in the Forensic Science Laboratory immediately before testing, or had been brought there from storage at a Garda station.
Charleton said the written submissions on Nash’s behalf, dated 7 November 2013, described the jacket as being in Garda custody. They did not say that it had remained at all times in the laboratory, or distinguish parts of the garment, such as the lining, cuffs, threads or buttons, from the jacket as a whole. He quoted submissions referring to the jacket as being in Garda possession since 1997 and to exhibits being kept in Garda stations.
The judge said his earlier account—that exhibits were brought back to the laboratory for further investigation—was consistent with those submissions and with the described interaction between Gardaí and forensic scientists. He also said that no one had argued during the earlier appeal that the laboratory acted independently to retrieve samples without police direction.
The judgment recounted the testing history as set out in earlier judgments. It said that in July 2009 buttons and thread from the jacket produced a DNA profile matching victim Sylvia Shiels, and that a profile matching victim Mary Callinan emerged after the jacket’s right sleeve seam was opened and examined in September. Nash was charged with the Grangegorman double murder in October 2009. These are details recounted from the prior judgment, not new findings in the 2017 ruling.
Charleton said the earlier appeal had also addressed the points raised at oral argument, including an issue concerning prayer cards. He concluded that he did not accept that a mistake had been made in the context of the submissions advanced for Nash. The judgment records that conclusion on the alleged error; it does not set out any broader order or determine the underlying murder charges anew.