Catherine Nevin’s criminal conviction for the murder of her husband Tom can be used in the civil action by his brother and sister aimed at stopping her inheriting any of his assets, the High Court has ruled.
The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said it would be “contrary to common sense and offend any reasonable person’s sense of justice and fairness” if the conviction was not admissible. There was “the clearest public policy consideration” for its admissibility – that “the perpetrator of the crime of murder should not be the beneficiary of it”.
He stressed the conviction was prima facie evidence only that Catherine Nevin murdered her husband. It was still open to her at the trial of the civil proceedings to contend she did not murder Tom Nevin and should not have been convicted, he said.
Nevin (61), was convicted in 2000 of murdering Tom Nevin at their pub, Jack White’s Inn near Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow, on March 19th, 1996. She was jailed for life on that charge and also received a seven-year sentence for soliciting three men to kill Mr Nevin in 1989 and 1990. Her appeal against conviction was dismissed in 2003.