DPP not to charge man with murder

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has decided not to charge the man who admitted to the murder of two women patients …

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has decided not to charge the man who admitted to the murder of two women patients at Grangegorman psychiatric hospital in March 1997.

Mark Nash (27), who made the admissions, is already in jail serving a life sentence for the 1997 double killing of the Co Roscommon couple, Catherine and Carl Doyle. Like the two Grangegorman patients, Mary Callinan (61) and Sylvia Shields (59), the Doyles were savagely attacked and stabbed to death in their home.

Yesterday the sister of one of the Grangegorman victims criticised the Garda and DPP's handling of the case. Ms Stella Shields was informed of the decision not to proceed with charges by The Irish Times. She said: "I must ask: where is the justice? The guards must know who the killer is. They have all the evidence and if they have evidence they should go to court. If the case is there it should be brought. What have they got to lose?"

Last week, the sister of Catherine Doyle called on the Government never to release Nash.

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Sarah Jane Doyle, who was Nash's girlfriend at the time of the murders and has a child by him, called on the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, to refuse Nash's appeal for repatriation and to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

Nash, who comes from Huddersfield, has applied to be repatriated to an English prison where he would be likely to serve a shorter sentence than if he remained in Ireland. He has also persisted in sending letters to another former girlfriend in England saying he wishes to be reconciled with her.

Gardai close to the investigation into the Roscommon and Grangegorman murders concur Nash poses a very serious threat.

A psychiatrist who examined details of the Grangegorman murders predicted, accurately as it turned out, that the murderer would strike again.

The murder of the Catherine (28) and Carl (29) Doyle happened after gardai had stopped looking for the real Grangegorman killer. By the time of their deaths, the DPP, on the advice of gardai, had already charged Mr Dean Lyons. Mr Lyons spent nine months in custody in Mountjoy Prison after he was wrongly accused of murdering Ms Shields and Ms Callinan. He was eventually released when the DPP accepted there had been no basis for charging him. Mr Lyons died of a drugs overdose in Manchester on September 12th this year. The outcome of an internal Garda inquiry into the affair remains a secret. The DPP does not comment publicly on decisions.