A man serving two life sentences for murdering a couple in Co Roscommon and who had been described as a suspect in the investigation into the murders of two women in Grangegorman, has lost a High Court bid aimed at allowing him to complete his sentences in a British prison.
However, Mr Justice Kearns indicated that if Mark Nash was to make a fresh application for transfer, it was possible that might yield a different result.
Nash (31) was born in Ballina but spent most of his life in Leeds in England, before coming to Ireland. He was found guilty in October 1998 of the murder of Carl Doyle (29) and his wife, Catherine (28), in Ballintober, Castlerea, on August 16th, 1997.
Nash applied for transfer in 1999 which was refused in April 2001. No reasons were given at that time and he took legal proceedings to compel the Minister for Justice to give reasons. In December 2001 he was told that the basis for the refusal was that he was a suspect in the Grangegorman murders case.
Nash challenged those reasons as unreasonable. In an affidavit, he said the murders of Mary Callanan and Sylvia Shields at Grangegorman in March 1997 had been the subject of much controversy and media attention in that several different individuals allegedly confessed to the murders.
Dean Lyons, who has since died, was charged with the murders but it was later accepted by gardaí that he could not have committed them.
Nash said an RTÉ Prime Time programme had recorded that the DPP had informed members of the murder victims' families that no prosecution was intended. In those circumstances, he said, refusing to transfer him to Britain because it was claimed he was a suspect in the Callanan/Shields murders was not reasonable. This was particularly so because his transfer did not mean he could not be brought back before an Irish court.
It was only when documents were discovered for his legal proceedings that Nash learned the DPP had decided some time in March 2001 that no proceedings should be instituted against him "at that time" in relation to the Grangegorman murders.
Giving his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Kearns found that the Minister's refusal to transfer was a reasonable exercise of his discretion "at that time." However, that did not preclude Nash from applying again, which might yield a different result having regard to the interval of time which had now elapsed.
In April 2001, the Minister had exercised his discretion under the Act to refuse Nash's application for a transfer. At that time, the Minister was of the view that the sensitive nature of the investigation precluded him from informing Nash of the reasons.
When the Minister made his decision against transfer, Mr Justice Kearns said, it could not be said he did anything unreasonable or irrational.
He did not think it would be reasonable for the Minister, year after year, to simply accept an assertion from a member of the Garda Síochána, however senior in rank, that a person should not be transferred purely on the basis of a possibility of a prosecution.
