Gilligan sentence reduced to 20 years

The Court of Criminal Appeal has reduced from 28 to 20 years a sentence imposed on John Gilligan for having cannabis resin for sale and supply.

In reducing the sentence, the three-judge appeal court expressed concern that when imposing the 28-year sentence, the non-jury Special Criminal Court erred in principle "in not restricting itself to the individual charges which were proved".

Gilligan had been convicted on drug charges but acquitted of the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.

The appeal court also expressed concern that in light of its previous rejection of a finding by the Special Criminal Court that Gilligan (52) was the leader of a drugs distribution gang, the 28-year-sentence was disproportionate to those imposed on others involved.

Despite yesterday's reduction, Gilligan is still facing a total of 25 years in prison, dating from October 1996, because, in addition to the 20-year sentence, he is serving a five-year consecutive sentence for threatening the lives of two prison officers and their families during an incident at Portlaoise Prison in 1991. An appeal against that five-year sentence has yet to be heard.

After yesterday's appeal court judgment, Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for Gilligan, said he would be making an application to have points of law arising from Gilligan's case referred to the Supreme Court on grounds that they raise points of law of exceptional public importance.

The points of law have not yet been outlined but it is understood they will include matters concerning the State's witness protection programme. A number of alleged former associates of Gilligan were placed on that programme after agreeing to testify against him.

The appeal court will consider whether to refer the points of law to the Supreme Court at a hearing on December 3rd.

Gilligan was convicted before the Special Criminal Court in 2001 of 11 drug-related offences, including counts of importing cannabis resin into the State on dates unknown between July 1994 and October 1996 and having the drug for sale and supply.

It jailed Gilligan for 12 years on the importation counts and 28 years on the sale and supply counts, the sentences to run concurrently and to be backdated to October 6th, 1996, when he was arrested in England.

Last August, the appeal court rejected Gilligan's appeal against that conviction. At a separate hearing last week, it heard Gilligan's appeal against the severity of the sentences imposed.

Giving the appeal court's reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice McCracken, sitting with Mr Justice Quirke and Mr Justice Peart, said it had been argued that Gilligan had been convicted only of five individual importations of cannabis resin and six individual occasions of possession of cannabis resin.

Mr Justice McCracken said the appeal court agreed that a person may only be sentenced for offences proved against them. However, a sentencing court could not act "in blinkers" and this case was one where the court was entitled to take into account the facts and circumstances surrounding the commission of the offences.

Gilligan appeared to have masterminded a sophisticated procedure whereby drugs were imported into Ireland from the Netherlands and transported from Cork to the car-park of a hotel in Naas where they were collected by the persons who distributed the drugs in Dublin.

While the appeal court had held it would be unsafe to find Gilligan was leader of a gang of which Charles Bowden was part, there was no doubt he was the leader and prime mover and organiser of the importation and sale of the drugs set out in the offences for which he was charged. That matter was properly taken into account by the court. The nature of the drug - cannabis resin - was also a surrounding circumstance to take into account, the judge said. Gilligan's counsel had argued this was a less harmful drug than others.

Mr Justice McCracken said when imposing the 28-year sentence, the language used by the Special Criminal Court in expressing its rightful abhorrence of drug-dealing was "unfortunate" and "had overstepped the line between considering surrounding circumstances and in effect sentencing for criminal activities of which the applicant had not been convicted".

In that regard, he referred to a remark by the Special Criminal Court that: "To the knowledge of the court, never in the history of Irish criminal jurisprudence has one person been presumed to have caused so much wretchedness to so many - a haemorrhage of harm that it is unlikely to heal even in a generation."

Dealing with arguments on behalf of Gilligan that he had effectively received two life sentences (in the context of the average amount of time served under a life sentence being under 14 years), Mr Justice McCracken said a life sentence must be regarded as a sentence for the natural life of the convicted person. The appeal court must consider the 28-year-sentence as less than the maximum life sentence.

He also noted counsel for Gilligan had argued the sentences were disproportionate compared with those imposed on persons connected with Gilligan, including Patrick Holland who was now, following an appeal, serving a 12-year sentence. Probably the chief of those connected persons was Brian Meehan who was serving 20 years for having cannabis resin for sale and supply, the judge said.