by John Mooney
Kevin Meehan, Brian’s father, had stood by his son. Each day he would travel from his home on Stanaway Road in Crumlin to watch the evidence unfold. His wife Frances often accompanied him, as did his daughter Vanessa.
On the night of Monday, 20 July, he was preparing to go to bed when he heard the doorbell ring. This was a complete surprise because they were not expecting visitors. Kevin Meehan answered the door to a man who said he was lost. This seemed strange because his home lies on a road where the neighbours know each other on first name terms; in other words, few people get lost. By the time he realised something was wrong, the caller had produced a gun and fired two bullets. The first ricocheted off a wall; the second hit its target in the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Meehan collapsed in a pool of blood while the gunman made good his escape. It was a savage attack on an innocent man.
Brian Meehan learned of the attack the next morning on his way to Dublin from Portlaoise Prison. When he returned to the prison that night, he went straight to Walsh and pleaded for mercy. He said he was sorry. It was all a terrible mistake. Walsh said nothing as Meehan continued to demonstrate his desperation. When he finished begging, he then asked if the IRA would be able to get to any of the witnesses, in return for a cash donation. But as soon as he’d asked, the Tosser knew he had overstepped the mark. He apologised once again.
The following week, on 29 July, he was convicted for Guerin’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. This time, the court ruled that Bowden’s testimony couldn’t be believed. Instead, it accepted Warren’s evidence that Meehan inspected the motorcycle, directed repairs and renovations to be carried out, later road tested the motorcycle and returned to collect the motorcycle on the morning of 26 June 1996.
‘The court is satisfied that this evidence leads to only one conclusion, namely that the accused was a fundamental part of the conspiracy or plot to murder Veronica Guerin, that he participated fully in the event,’ the judge added.
But the court discarded the evidence given by Bowden and his common-law wife Juliet in relation to the murder, although it accepted their evidence concerning Meehan’s role in the drugs and firearms.
Of Bowden, Justice Freddie Morris, the presiding judge, noted: ‘In cross-examination Meehan’s defence counsel suggested to Charles Bowden that he was deliberately bolstering the evidence which he was giving so as to be the witness who implicated the accused in the crime and thereby make himself a more ‘saleable commodity’ if he sold his story to the newspapers or wrote a book.
‘Charles Bowden denied in positive terms that he ever considered such a thing. He did so in explicit terms. Subsequently defence counsel produced and established to the court’s satisfaction that Charles Bowden had in fact contacted a journalist with a view to collaborating with him in the publication of his involvement in this matter. Charles Bowden acknowledged to the court that he had lied to the court.’
These were but some examples of the way the court found his evidence unsatisfactory.
‘The court rejects this witness’s evidence as unreliable in relation to count number one.’ Justice Morris declared that the court treat the evidence of Juliet Bowden on the same basis as that of an accomplice. She had lied on a number of occasions to the court.
Dealing with the drugs offences, the judge said the court approached Bowden’s evidence on the drugs and firearms offences with extreme caution. He noted that Bowden was prepared to lie under oath and had been found to do so in this trial. But he was satisfied that while carrying out his function as a drugs distributor, Bowden acted under the direct control of Meehan.
The conviction made Gilligan more desperate. He was thrown into bouts of depression because, no matter how much he tried, he could find no mechanism to secure his freedom. He knew what lay ahead but couldn’t accept it. On 5 October, the House of Lords paved the way for the extradition.
In one of his more novel appeals, Gilligan had asked the Lords to rule that extradition was unlawful because the offences contained in the Irish warrants did not correspond to English offences. The appeal lasted two days, but Lord Browne Wilkinson and four other law lords unanimously rejected his claim in less than 15 minutes. Although his appeal did not succeed, Gilligan refused to give in. He went back to his cell and consulted his reference books on extradition and with great bravado submitted a writ of habeas corpus, written in his own hand, to the Divisional Court in London. The writ declared that he was being illegally held in Britain. If extradited, he declared, he would be tried for Guerin’s murder in the Special Criminal Court. In his opinion, this was fundamentally wrong because trial without jury does not occur in England and Wales.
It worked. His application pre-empted the publication of the written judgement by the Law Lords and further delayed his extradition because he was entitled to address the court. It was a smart move, for on 13 December he was granted bail for the British charges but still held in custody for extradition.
The truth of the matter was that the British courts were deeply uneasy about holding him for much longer. Therefore, it came as no surprise to anyone when the Crown Prosecution Service was ordered to make its position clear the following week as to whether it would proceed with the English trial or drop the charges altogether. Gilligan felt elated. Things were finally going his way, it seemed.
Christmas came but didn’t pass without incident. Gilligan wrote directly to Bowden’s and Warren’s families from Highdown Prison in Surrey. He was transferred to this prison after he attacked a prison officer. Once again, he set off alarm bells. The letters were enquiring into the recipients’ health. But there were secret messages in the new letters. In one letter, he offered an olive branch to Bowden. He wrote that he believed the gardaí had forced him to make a statement. The message was simple: all would be forgiven if he retracted his evidence. The ruse did not work.
Gilligan reached the end of the road on 3 February when the High Court in London dismissed his habeas corpus application. Lord Justice Brown, sitting with Justice Klevan, threw out his application. It was not merely misconceived, they said, but was an abuse of process. Gilligan was half expecting as much and was not present at the 20-minute hearing in London. He was preparing to fly home. As soon as the judgment was delivered, the gangster was brought from Highdown Prison to the RAF base at Northolt. He was peculiarly silent and said not a single word during the trip. He arrived there at 2.30 p.m. when Detective Sergeant John Warren of Scotland Yard handed him over to O’Loughlin. His prisoner was overcome by sickness, brought about by the drama. He was flown home in an Air Corps CASA jet which arrived at Baldonnel’s Casement Aerodrome at 4.35 p.m.
The media were everywhere. Photographers and television camera crews jostled for the best positions. It was a circus. When Gilligan finally descended from the aircraft, O’Loughlin arrested him. Hickey, never a man to court publicity, made a point of staying away.
Gilligan, the big, bad bogeyman of the Irish underworld, was seen in his true colours. He wore a green and yellow prison uniform with a prison insignia stamped on the back. He cowered, covering his face with his hands to shield himself from the cameras. Old habits die hard.
A convoy of military and police vehicles brought him to the Special Criminal Court on Green Street in central Dublin. A helicopter hovered above the court building. Sniffer dogs and armed soldiers were everywhere. The convoy drove straight past the photographers and camera crews and into a yard adjacent to the Special Criminal Court building. The doors slammed behind the vehicle as Gilligan stepped out of the van and was taken into the court. For the accused, the prospect of having to face the court was too much. He had spent years fighting extradition in the beleaguered hope that the case would somehow fall apart, that Bowden would be exposed as a liar, that Warren would refuse to testify out of fear and that any evidence from Dunne could be proved unreliable. In pursuit of these objectives he had done all he could. Now the game was over.
The hearing lasted no longer than 25 minutes. When it concluded, Gilligan asked: ‘Bail would be out of the question, wouldn’t it?’
Gilligan adopted the same policy of fighting the gardaí every step of the way from his cell in Portlaoise Prison. If the prosecution thought Gilligan would stop making legal challenges, they were wrong. And so started another series of legal manoeuvres aimed at stopping his trial from going ahead.
He made a series of pre-trial submissions in April. Because he was not legally represented, he was asked to stand at the bench normally used by junior defence barristers. Gilligan, in bold fashion, made his way from the dock to the lawyers’ bench, where in gruff language he denied making threats against people prepared to give evidence against him. He had not put a ‘price’ on their heads. ‘The only thing I ordered was a cappuccino,’ he said.
He spoke for 50 minutes and applied to have the charge of murder dealt with separately from other drugs and firearms charges. It was a clever move designed to break down the credibility of the supergrass. Speaking without the grace of a barrister, he told the three judges that he was objecting to the court because it was not independent or impartial, and he submitted documents from a United Nations Human Rights Commission hearing. But after doing so well, at the end of the submissions, he thought aloud: ‘I don’t do this every day. I am not too sure of myself. I thought I’d be able to handle this case. I certainly can’t handle it. I’d like to apply for legal aid. I haven’t a penny.’
The IRA, meanwhile, was under pressure to move against the dealers—largely because the dealers were importing military weapons into Dublin, and these were being sold to loyalist terrorists and dissident republicans. Various people in the republican organisation were charged with investigating this trade. Within a short space of time, the trail led back to the Netherlands and Spain. John Cunningham, an old friend of Gilligan’s, was funnelling a steady stream of weapons to Ireland from The Hague. But the inquiry implicated Traynor, who they found living between holiday apartments on the Costa del Sol. A team of republicans travelled to the area at once and started monitoring Traynor’s activities. Then by chance, they stumbled upon Geraldine and Tracy Gilligan who were travelling to a holiday villa in Alicante. They followed them everywhere, photographed them and logged their movements. They even watched and photographed Geraldine sunbathing by the pool. Traynor’s every move was watched. When he went into bars, those drinking beside him were IRA intelligence officers monitoring him. Peter Mitchell was also monitored. Then, after much debate, they decided to execute Traynor on the strict condition the shooting would not be claimed. ‘Its purpose was to send a message to drug dealers that they could run but they couldn’t hide,’ said one of the team involved.
The plan was to shoot Traynor dead in the hope that the media would attribute his murder to a rival criminal gang. A trained assassin was flown to Spain, and through another contact a suitable weapon was acquired for the hit. Like all IRA operations, there would be other republicans in the vicinity to assist the killer’s escape and dispose of the weapon.
Everything was going according to plan until Traynor failed to show at a prearranged meeting. They waited and, fearing that one of their number might be stopped by the police, they got rid of the weapon. Traynor eventually did resurface, but it was too late. He had escaped within an inch of his life and didn’t even know it.
Back in Ireland, the judge dismissed Gilligan’s application and remanded him to Portlaoise until 22 May. It was in Portlaoise that he met the man he would hire as his solicitor, Joe Rice. The Belfast solicitor was working for Sean ‘Bap’ Hughes, an INLA suspect facing charges for murdering a garda. Every Sunday, like clockwork, he would drive from Belfast to Portlaoise to discuss the pending trial with Hughes. This was of great interest to Gilligan, who was struck by his dedication. One morning, while Rice was briefing Hughes, Gilligan interrupted the meeting.
‘Jesus, lads, you’re very committed.’
Rice, an amicable man, said he’d do the same for any client.
Using this remark as a starting point to introduce himself, Gilligan asked if Rice would be interested in reading his book of evidence. The next week, Gilligan asked him to take his case.
The solicitor agreed, but on one condition: ‘John, it must be on legal aid.’ He formally came on board on 22 May when this was granted.
On 26 June, on the third anniversary of Guerin’s death, he was told his legal attempts to have the murder charge dealt with separately from drugs and firearm charges had failed. But he did get access to transcripts of the Ward and Meehan trials.
Gilligan’s trial was scheduled to begin on 3 October, but as with everything in his life, there had to be a challenge. In July, he succeeded in having two of the three judges removed from the case. Justice Kevin O’Higgins of the High Court and Judge Matthew Deery of the Circuit Court discharged themselves, leaving William Hamill of the District Court.
The month of September brought more challenges. The opening of the trial on 3 October brought even more when Gilligan sacked his counsel, forcing the adjournment of the trial for a week. Justice Diarmuid O’Donovan, who was appointed to hear the case, warned him that he should not dismiss any more counsel as it would not be tolerated.
The week’s adjournment was given only to allow Eugene Grant QC and Dr Michael Forde SC, his new lawyers, time to prepare a proper defence. Further applications were refused because the trial date had been fixed since February. The judge also noted that Gilligan’s solicitor and his junior counsel, Peter Irvine, had been with the case since an early stage. A week later, Rice read letters to the court from Grant and Irvine stating that the barristers could not properly prepare a defence in the time allotted by the court. Left with no other option, the court adjourned the trial to 21 November.
Gilligan thought this was a great accomplishment. He was fighting various cases and had taken a challenge to the Supreme Court appealing another decision by the High Court, which had refused him the right to trial by jury. The Supreme Court reserved judgement. In this whirlwind of legal challenges, on 20 October he took yet another step, seeking secret Garda reports on a series of telephone conversations in 1996 between a Garda detective and the Attorney General, Michael McDowell. When this proved a futile exercise, conscious that Bowden and the others were most likely worried about testifying, Gilligan decided to resort to his old tactics. He granted an interview to the Sunday Business Post. ‘We will find the truth through the families—wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. They will all be called to give evidence,’ he declared. When the interview was published, his senior counsel withdrew their services at once.
News of the resignations was the last straw for the court. Since Gilligan was charged, he had lost some of the most gifted counsel in the State. The judges saw through his decision to talk to the press and proclaimed the trial would still go ahead on 21 November. But it didn’t and was adjourned for the third time to 4 December. Rice’s solid legal advice bought Gilligan the extra time. The solicitor told the court that he had approached 33 senior counsel, but none were available to begin the trial.
‘My client has instructed me that he would like the case to start as soon as possible. He is frustrated,’ Rice said.
Justice O’Donovan heard him loud and clear, but warned in no uncertain terms that this would be the last adjournment. ‘No excuses whatsoever will be entertained by the court for an adjournment of this trial. If counsel decide to opt out, this case will still go on, and Mr Gilligan may well have to defend himself,’ he said.
Gilligan’s trial was an anti-climax of giant proportions. After nearly four years of legal manoeuvres to stop it from going
ahead, when it did finally commence at 11.35 a.m. on 4 December 2000, the public gallery was barely occupied. Only a handful of journalists showed up. There was no packed gallery, no sightseers seeking a glimpse of the great gangster of the Irish underworld. There were just the police, the solicitors, their barristers and the prison officers.
After the court clerk read out the charges, Gilligan sat down, crossed his legs, leaned back and looked above his head, smiling, gnawing at his jaw as if he were chewing gum.
The dock where the accused sits is raised about five feet above the ground. From this position, Gilligan could look down into the courtroom itself where those with a professional interest in the case took their seats. Sitting directly opposite him, across the room on what looks like a small balcony, sat his three trial judges—Joseph Mathews, Diarmuid O’Donovan and William Hamill. Judge Mathews was noticeably younger-looking than his colleagues and spoke, when he did, with an authoritative voice. Judge O’Donovan was slightly smaller in stature. He smiled constantly and often leaned back into his chair to ponder, if not to avoid the harsh spotlight that illuminated his seated position. Judge Hamill wore no wig, only a gown, which gave him a more casual appearance than that of his colleagues.
The opposing legal teams were seated below, facing in the direction of the three judges. To Gilligan’s right sat the prosecution team headed by Peter Charleton. On his feet, he stood over six feet tall, but he leaned slightly to one side when he addressed the court. His height coupled with his voice allowed him to assert his authority without having to raise his voice. Beside him sat Eamonn Leahy, a giant of a man whose robust stature almost filled two spaces on the narrow wooden bench. Alongside him sat Tom O’Connell, another barrister.
