Charles Bowden's evidence about a meeting alleged to have been held on June 28th, 1996, two days after Veronica Guerin's murder, was described as the appeal court's "primary concern" when quashing Ward's conviction.
Bowden claimed Ward had said at the meeting that the gun had been left in Ward's house and he was "unaware" that was supposed to happen. An alleged verbal statement by Ward to gardaí also had Ward saying he was "pissed off" about the gun being left, that he had got on a bus, dumped the gun and was "scared shitless". Ward had denied any such meeting or statement.
The appeal court said if Ward's statement was accepted then Ward was unaware of any plan for incriminating evidence to be dumped at his house. The statement established Ward had no plans to dispose of the gun.
Ward was frequently stopped by gardaí and the course he was said to have adopted, getting on a bus and disposing of a gun used hours, if not minutes, earlier, "in the commission of a cruel murder, would have been an act of folly and hardly one approved or planned by those organising an assassination with what appeared to be ruthless efficiency".
The court added there was no suggestion by Bowden that Ward had referred at this meeting to a motorbike and no express evidence a motorbike arrived at Ward's house at Walkinstown on June 26th, 1996. The prosecution's suggestion that Ward's house was near the site of the murder, and thus a place for the motorbike to be hidden, did not withstand scrutiny.
The location of the murder was fortuitous, there was no evidence the gang controlled traffic lights where Ms Guerin's car had to stop. It must be assumed the killing at that point was opportunistic.
However, the court had not drawn its conclusion on that inference but was under the impression Bowden's evidence established Ward was involved in the planning of the murder and his role was to dispose of the gun and motorbike.
The court made no reference to Ward being out of the country from June 15th to June 22nd/23rd, when much of the planning for the murder must have taken place.
There was also some evidence at the trial that, shortly after the killing, witnesses saw a motorbike with two persons drive to a premises called RNT Engineering, off the Belgard Road. The SCC judges found the evidence of the sighting near RNT was not clear enough to raise a doubt that the motorbike may might not have gone to Ward's house. However tenuous the evidence was about the motorbike at RNT, it was "no less convincing" than placing it in Walkinstown, the CCA court said.
