Mark Nash pleads not guilty to Grangegorman murders

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Mark Nash has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to murdering Sylvia Shields, 60, and Mary Callanan, 61. The charges concern killings between 6 and 7 March 1997. The women lived in sheltered accommodation in Grangegorman. The proceedings were reported on 5 March 2015.

Chief Supt Dominic Hayes told the jury that gardaí seized a black pin-striped velvet jacket, two pairs of boots and a suit from the Clonliffe Road flat Nash shared with Sarah Jane Doyle on 17 August 1997. He said he handed the items to Dr Fiona Thornton at the Forensic Science Laboratory on 18 August 1997.

Brendan Grehan SC, opening the prosecution’s case on 22 January 2015, had described new tests in July 2009 finding DNA belonging to both women on the jacket as a “spectacular breakthrough”.

During cross-examination, defence counsel Hugh Hartnett SC said no consent had been given to seize the boots. Hayes said he took them because they could provide forensic evidence.

Under defence cross-examination, retired detective Dominic Cox said he received the boots in November 1997. The court heard the jacket was never mentioned to him and he was never asked to put it in the exhibits locker. Cox said there had been no interference with the exhibits.

Hartnett also questioned retired Det Garda Alan Bailey about Martin Stafford, whose car had been seen close to the murder scene. Bailey acknowledged suspicion but said Stafford was one of 250 persons of interest and a technical examination found nothing linking the car to the scene. He said investigators would have expected blood traces if the person in the car had been involved, and their approach depended on what they found in it.

The trial was continuing.