The quashing of the conviction of Paul Ward for the murder of Veronica Guerin is not surprising. What is, comments Vincent Browne, is the court's reasoning.
All that remains now of "the most extensive investigation ever carried out by the Garda Síochána in the history of the State" is the fragile conviction of a single person, Brian Meehan.
The gang leader supposedly at the centre of the conspiracy to murder Veronica Guerin, John Gilligan, was acquitted by the Special Criminal Court last year. Now the "breakthrough" conviction of the first accused in connection with the murder, Paul Ward, has fallen apart. Along the way the most serious questions arise, not just about the competence of the Garda investigation but about its conduct.
The Special Criminal Court's judgment in the Paul Ward case seemed suspect flawed from the outset. Having disregarded evidence of alleged admissions because of very suspect questionable Garda conduct, the court had gone on to convict Ward solely on the basis of the evidence of a "supergrass", i.e. a person who was both an accomplice and a person to whom State favours were being accorded in return for giving that evidence.
It had long been the law that convicting a person solely on the basis of the evidence of an accomplice (that is, without any corroborating evidence) could happen only after a jury had been warned of the dangers of convicting an accused person on that evidence alone.
But in the case of a "supergrass" it had been expected that, without corroborating evidence, a conviction could not be secured. This had been the law in Northern Ireland.
However, in this case the Special Criminal Court convicted Paul Ward solely on the supergrass evidence. And the expectation was that the Court of Criminal Appeal would overturn the verdict on that basis. But it hasn't done so. It has overturned the verdict essentially on the grounds that the reasoning of the Special Criminal Court, in its assessment of the facts, had been confused.
In a damning commentary on a crucial part of the judgment of the Special Criminal Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal said yesterday: "The reality of the matter would appear to be that the Special Criminal Court was misled by the confusing evidence and voluminous documentation placed before it."
The appeal court cannot judge the credibility of a witness for it does not hear or see the witness and therefore is bound by the assessment of credibility of the original court. But it could and did examine the reasoning of the court in its assessment of facts.
The first point it latched on to was the contention of the Special Criminal Court that the supergrass witness, Charles Bowden, had an incentive to tell the truth for, if he was found to be lying, he would jeopardise the favourable situation he had "salvaged" for himself (i.e. the witness protection programme for himself and his family and immunity from prosecution for the murder of Veronica Guerin).
But as the Court of Criminal Appeal observed yesterday: "That analysis underscores the vulnerability of Mr Bowden's position, but does not explain who would determine whether Mr Bowden was lying or by reference to what standard [he would be found to be lying]."
Charles Bowden had given evidence that, before the murder, the gang had arranged with Paul Ward to leave the motorcycle and gun at his house. But the evidence showed Paul Ward was out of the country when the murder was being planned, and on the day it took place there was a reasonable expectation that Paul Ward would be in jail.
Uncontradicted evidence suggested he was expecting to be arrested and imprisoned for a month, following conviction on a number of road traffic offences.
There was no admissible evidence that the motorcycle and the gun had been left with Paul Ward, and the court expressed doubt that those who allegedly meticulously planned the murder would have chosen a drug addict (as Paul Ward then was) to store the gun and the motorcycle.
The Brian Meehan conviction of July 1999 (he was alleged to have been the driver of the motorcycle from the back of which another person murdered Veronica Guerin) has seemed unlikely also.
However, it is by no means axiomatic that because a supergrass was disbelieved in the Paul Ward case, the Court of Criminal Appeal would disbelieve another supergrass in the Meehan case.
And, by the way, it was just as well for Paul Ward it was the Special Criminal Court which found him guilty of the murder of Veronica Guerin.
Had it been a jury that convicted him the Court of Criminal Appeal could not have examined the reasoning behind the conviction and would not have overturned the verdict.