By Daniel Keane
A Supreme Court judgment has upheld John Gilligan's drug convictions and ruled that evidence from people in the State Witness Protection Programme can lawfully be used in criminal trials, subject to safeguards designed to ensure fairness.
Gilligan had been tried before the Special Criminal Court on 16 counts, including the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin and a series of drugs and firearms offences. In March 2001, the court acquitted him of murder and the firearms charges but convicted him of offences involving the importation, possession and supply of cannabis resin.
The prosecution case on the drug charges relied significantly on evidence from John Dunne, Charles Bowden and Russell Warren. All three were treated as accomplices and were involved in the Witness Protection Programme.
The trial court was critical of aspects of how some witnesses had been dealt with. These included unrecorded Garda meetings and the return of money to Bowden and Warren without an adequate basis. It nevertheless found that those shortcomings did not make the entire trial unfair. It required supporting evidence before acting on significant parts of Bowden's and Warren's testimony.
Ms Justice Denham held that there is no special rule excluding evidence simply because a witness is in a protection programme. Such evidence is governed by ordinary evidential and constitutional principles.
However, she said a jury should be warned that it is dangerous to convict on the evidence of a protected witness without corroboration. Corroboration means independent, credible evidence tending to connect the accused with the offence. Even after that warning, corroboration is not an absolute legal requirement and a fact-finder may convict without it if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.
Denham J concluded that the Special Criminal Court had taken a sufficiently cautious approach to the protected witnesses and had evidential support for its findings on the drug offences. She would dismiss Gilligan's appeal insofar as it challenged those convictions.