Gallagher detention upheld by High Court

THE Department of Justice will continue a policy of phased releases for the convicted killer John Gallagher, following yesterday's High Court judgment rejecting his application for complete freedom.

Under the programme of short-term releases, which began in June, Gallagher is allowed an escorted three-hour outing each month, with an extra family outing at Christmas. All the outings are confined to the Dublin area and are supervised by staff from the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum.

Gallagher's case will be reviewed in the new year.

The panel of three judges yesterday agreed unanimously that Gallagher's continued detention was lawful, but criticised the way his case had been dealt with by the Minister for Justice. There had been unjustifiable delays in arriving at decisions on his case, they acknowledged, but the Minister's eventual decision on a limited release programme was a proper one.

Gallagher shot dead his former girlfriend, Anne Gillespie, and her mother, Annie, in the grounds of Sligo General Hospital in September, 1988.

A jury at the Central Criminal Court found him guilty but insane in July, 1989, but later that year he initiated the first of a series of appeals for release from the Central Mental Hospital, claiming that he had recovered his sanity.

After the judgment, before being returned to the Central Mental Hospital by taxi, Mr Gallagher said chat he was "obviously not too pleased" at the outcome, but added that he would be studying it with his legal representatives.

Mr Justice Hugh Geoghegan, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy and Mr Justice Peter Kelly ruled that Gallagher had failed in his contention that his constitutional rights had been seriously breached in the way his application for release had been processed.

They accepted that, while political and other influences might have been exerted on the Minister for Justice in her "quasi-judicial" role in deciding his case, no such "improper" influence had been taken into account by her.

The defence had accused the Minister of ambiguity on the release programme. But one of the three judges, Ms Justice Laffoy, said that, while the Department of Justice might be reluctant to use the term "phased release", the fact was that the Minister was committed to a programme which, if successful, must inevitably lead to more frequent and longer periods of freedom for Gallagher and, ultimately, to his release.

Mrs Noreen Crumlish, a sister of Annie Gillespie, welcomed the judgment, but said that it was only a temporary reprieve for the family from Gallagher's inevitable release.

Speaking from her home in Co Donegal, she said that the family was still fearful of what Gallagher could do when he got out: "If we never saw him again, we wouldn't mind."