CONVICTED MURDERER Catherine Nevin was yesterday acquitted of possessing a mobile phone at the Dóchas centre in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, nearly two years ago.
Nevin (58) was found not guilty by Judge Aeneas McCarthy at Dublin District Court of possessing the mobile phone, contrary to the Prisons Act 2007, at the Dóchas centre, the women’s section of the prison, on January 28th last year. The judge held the evidence was not sufficient to secure a conviction.
Nevin had then been classified as a “privileged” prisoner, and lived in rooms in a house with minimal supervision in the prison complex, the court was told.
She had pleaded not guilty to the charge, which on conviction could have resulted in a fine not exceeding €5,000 and/or a one-year jail term.
The five-hour trial yesterday proceeded despite earlier efforts by Nevin to have the case delayed pending the outcome of the Court of Criminal Appeal’s decision on her bid to have her murder conviction declared a miscarriage of justice. In 2000, Nevin was convicted of murdering her husband Tom by a Central Criminal Court jury after a 42-day trial and five days’ deliberation.
Prison officer Jean O’Reilly told the court she entered a room shared by Nevin and prisoner Nokukhanya Cele (35), from South Africa, who was serving a sentence for importing drugs. Cele had pleaded guilty to possessing the same mobile phone and three more phones on other dates. After her sentence expired she was deported.
Ms O’Reilly said: “I went in, Nokukhanya was sitting on the bed, Catherine was acting suspicious and had the covers over her. I lifted the blanket and she had a mobile phone in her hand. I asked her to hand it over, she did.”
Ms O’Reilly said the grey Nokia phone had been switched on, and she later gave it to the chief prison officer Mary O’Connor.
Ms O’Reilly agreed that she had seized other mobile phones but said that she was sure the one exhibited in court was the same as the one handed over to her by Nevin. However, she agreed she could not definitively say that it was the same phone.
Ms O’Connor told the court that when she received the phone it was still switched on and she was able to access its calls log and messages. She later handed the phone over to gardaí.
Det Supt John McMahon said he sought permission from the prison to speak with Nevin there.
He denied suggestions that Nevin had been denied the right to have a solicitor present or to have her interview videoed. He said Nevin told him she had already obtained legal advice.
Judge McCarthy agreed to the defence submission that Nevin’s statement and the notes she made and handed over to gardaí were inadmissible because of the setting of the interview in a prison.
Dismissing the charge, Judge McCarthy said he was “not satisfied that the chain of evidence is linked together in a way that would create a prima facie case”.