From the time publican Tom Nevin was killed, gardaí "systematically leaked" information to the media to condition the public, including potential jurors, to the view that his widow, Catherine, had hired a contract killer to murder him, the Court of Criminal Appeal was told yesterday.
This was effectively "trial by media", Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for Nevin said.
Nevin was deprived of a fair trial by such adverse publicity and by the refusal of the trial judge, Miss Justice Carroll, to direct journalists to disclose the source of their information so Nevin's lawyers could establish the motivation of gardaí for such "massive leaks".
Some media coverage of the trial, particularly certain "colour" stories focusing on Nevin's appearance and demeanour, was so prejudicial that it must have adversely affected the jury, Mr MacEntee also argued.
He said 10 of the 22 called to serve on the jury at the trial had said they could not e because they believed themselves prejudiced or biased by published material.
That did not mean the remaining 12 who had served as jurors were not unconsciously prejudiced, he added.
The trial judge's ban on articles referring to Nevin's appearance was too late to undo the damage, he said. Certain "colour" articles published in several newspapers had dehumanised and depersonalised Nevin.
They were a vulgarisation of her, depicting her as a clothes peg.
Such articles presented a caricatured portrait of Tom Nevin as the easy-going, hard-working, much-loved country man.
Catherine Nevin, on the other hand was portrayed as the femme fatale, "big spender", "evil stepmother", a "dangerous, insincere lady" with no appropriate emotions and no tears. There was an obsession with her fingernails and clothes.
Given such coverage, the trial judge was wrong, after aborting one trial, not to adjourn the new trial to allow the "fade factor" to come into operation.
Counsel was opening the appeal by Nevin (51) against her conviction in April 2000 of the murder of her husband, Tom, at their pub, Jack White's Inn, Brittas Bay, on March 19th, 1996.
She is also appealing her conviction on three counts of soliciting three different men to kill her husband in 1989 and 1990.
Nevin is serving a life sentence on the murder charge and seven years on the soliciting charges.
She is arguing that her conviction is unfair and unsatisfactory on grounds including adverse publicity; the refusal to allow separate trials on the murder and soliciting charges; the nature of circumstantial evidence admitted at trial; and the alleged failure of the trial judge to properly analyse that evidence for the jury.
She also cites the failure of a witness, Mr Gerry Heapes, to give a time for the alleged soliciting by Nevin; and the allegedly wrong decision by the trial judge to admit evidence from members of the Nevin family rebutting Nevin's claim that her husband was involved with the IRA.
