The jury in the trial of Mrs Catherine Nevin, the former co-owner of Jack White's Inn, has heard that she expressed a wish to buy her husband's share of the business a few months before he was murdered.
A financial consultant, Mr Patrick Russell, said in evidence that Mrs Nevin contacted him to seek advice on tax matters in early 1996. When he met her, she told him that her husband was drinking and was not pulling his weight in the business. "In passing, she mentioned that she would love to buy him out", he said. She had also said that she would have "no problem raising the money".
Mr Russell told the court that he was a former member of Sinn Fein.
The jury also heard a former staff member at Jack White's Inn repeat an allegation that Mrs Nevin told her that "the judge" had a set of keys to the inn "a couple of weeks before Tom [Nevin] was killed". The witness was recalled at the request of the defence, which challenged her evidence.
Mr Patrick MacEntee SC had asked that Ms Liz Hudson and Ms Bernie Fleming - both of whom had alleged that Mrs Nevin said the judge had a set of keys - be recalled so that he could put a question to them.
When Ms Hudson took the stand yesterday she recalled that on the last occasion she gave evidence she had said she had a conversation with Mrs Nevin about keys. The conversation took place "a couple of weeks before Tom was killed", she told Mr MacEntee. She said she and Mrs Nevin were alone at the time.
Mr MacEntee said his instructions were that while there may have been a stage when Mrs Nevin had asked for a loan of her keys in the normal course of running a busy premises, she had never said that the judge had her keys. "Well, that's what she said to me - that's it."
Judge Donnchadh O Buachalla, a provincial judge of the District Court, had told the court that he never had a set of keys to Jack White's Inn. "At no time whatsoever had I any keys", he said.
Mrs Nevin (48) denies the murder of her husband, Tom Nevin (54), at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, near Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow, on March 19th, 1996. She also denies three charges of soliciting to murder.
In his evidence yesterday Mr Russell said that he had known Tom and Catherine Nevin since 1984, when he was introduced to them when they ran a pub in Finglas and, as a university student, he ran a Sinn Fein advice centre there.
He said he had very few dealings with them, but would have met them occasionally at functions in their Finglas pub. He next saw them in the years 1992 to 1996.
Mr Russell told Mr Peter Charleton SC, prosecuting, that he had his own financial and property services business and for two years had leased a pub in Waterford. He would occasionally stop off at Jack White's Inn on the way back to Dublin.
He said he last saw Tom Nevin in July or August 1995 when, with a friend, he called into the inn for a meal. Tom Nevin had come to their table "and indeed wouldn't let us pay", he said.
He had had no direct business dealings with the Nevins, but would often talk to them about general business matters and would consult Mrs Nevin on various aspects of the licensed trade.
In early January 1996, Mrs Nevin had phoned his Merrion Square office to ask if she could see him about a business matter. They met in the Davenport Hotel a week to 10 days later and Mrs Nevin told him that there had been a Revenue audit of the inn. He said she told him that she was dissatisfied with the way her accountants, Coopers & Lybrand, had handled the Revenue audit. She had inquired if he would be interested in doing the job.
Mr Russell said she would have known that he had done a lot of tax settlements with the Revenue, particularly at the time of the first tax amnesty, and particularly for the licensed trade. He had "quasi-specialised" in it for a time, he said.
But he told her that he was not interested. "I explained to Mrs Nevin that if Coopers & Lybrand weren't able, I as a sole individual wouldn't be", he said.
He then mentioned a few accountants he knew and recommended one, a Mr Noel Murphy from Cork, whose service he had found to be "superb".
Mrs Nevin went on to tell him that the business was going "extremely well". However, she said there were some difficulties with staff and she also told him that Tom Nevin was "drinking heavily and wasn't pulling his weight".
"In passing, she mentioned that she would love to buy him out", he told counsel, but she didn't believe Tom would agree to this. They talked about some financial institutions and she said she would have "no problem raising the money for it".
Mrs Nevin went on to tell him "in the most strident terms" to be very circumspect when he phoned the pub, Mr Russell said. She also asked that he should have "no discussion with Mr Nevin until such time as she had resolved the issue in question". And she indicated that before any change in accountant could take place she would need her husband's approval.
Mr Russell said Mrs Nevin told him that if he rang the pub he was to leave no message. He suggested that he would use the name Mr Fergus if he called. However, he accepted the evidence of staff at the inn, who said that the name John Ferguson had been used. He said the arrangement to use a false name didn't seem unusual at the time and wouldn't be totally unknown or unprecedented in the circumstances.
He subsequently made two tentative arrangements for Mrs Nevin to meet Mr Murphy, a chartered accountant based in Cork. Mrs Nevin was not available for the first meeting and did not turn up for the second. He rang her from Mr Murphy's office in Cork and introduced them over the phone. There followed a meeting between Mr Murphy and Mrs Nevin at his offices in Merrion Square. Mrs Nevin arrived on her own and said Mr Nevin had been up late drinking and wasn't up to travelling to Dublin.
Mr Russell said that he had ceased being a member of Sinn Fein in early 1989, but had begun to detach himself from the party in 1987, when he left university.
Replying to questions from Mr MacEntee, Mr Russell said that Tom and Catherine Nevin had never been members of the Sinn Fein cumann in Finglas. He said that when he would meet them in Jack White's Inn the licensed trade would "always be top of the agenda".
He said that the Revenue audit referred to was a common problem in the licensed trade at the time and gave rise to trade press articles and representations to accountancy bodies.
He agreed also that Mrs Nevin had been clear that her husband's approval would be needed before there could be any change of accountant. She had just "wanted all the ducks in a row before she approached him about it". With regard to the use of the name John Ferguson and the privacy of Mrs Nevin's business dealings, Mr Russell said: "I think she was obsessive about it, because she reiterated it on several occasions in the course of the conversation."
The trial continues before Ms Justice Mella Carroll and a jury.