The Court of Appeal has dismissed Brian Meehan’s application to have his conviction for Veronica Guerin’s murder declared a miscarriage of justice.
He was jailed for life after the Special Criminal Court believed him to be the driver of a motorbike carrying the gunman who killed her in June 1996.
The 47-year-old, who’s from Crumlin in Dublin, tried to claim new evidence emerged during the 2001 acquittal of John Gilligan.
Russell Warren, a self-confessed accomplice, gave evidence against Brian Meehan in 1999 and John Gilligan two years later. He was the State’s key witness and is now in the Witness Protection Programme.
A woman told both their trials that she saw a man fitting Warren’s description in the vicinity of Naas courthouse on June 26th 1996 – the day Veronica Guerin was murdered.
It emerged during Gilligan’s trial that she failed to pick him out of an ID parade a few months later and Meehan’s defence tried to argue this was a “new or newly discovered fact” that wasn’t available during his trial and should result in his conviction being declared a miscarriage of justice.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the application, describing their claim of non-disclosure as “disturbing”.
Veronica’s brother Jimmy said he was relieved.
