Nevin appeal against murder conviction to be heard today

Lawyers for convicted murderer Catherine Nevin will today appeal to the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal against her conviction…

Lawyers for convicted murderer Catherine Nevin will today appeal to the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal against her conviction for the murder of her husband, Tom Nevin, at their Co Wicklow pub nearly seven years ago.

Nevin (51), who was jailed in April 2000, will not be in court for the appeal, which is expected to last three or four days. When the court was dealing with preliminary matters relevant to the appeal last month, the judges were told that she did not wish to be present for the hearing.

Lawyers for the DPP will oppose the appeal.

Following Nevin's sentence nearly two years ago, her legal team immediately sought leave to appeal, citing 20 grounds.

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Some of the grounds are expected to allege errors in law on the part of the trial judge, while others are understood to deal with some of the evidence which was given. It is also expected that the nature of media coverage of the trial will be raised, while there are complaints as well about the adequacy of the disclosure of documents by the prosecution.

Nevin was sentenced to life imprisonment on April 11th 2000 after being found guilty of murdering her husband at the end of the longest murder trial in Irish legal history.

The jury took more than 29 hours over five days to return their verdict of guilty on the murder charge. They also convicted Nevin of soliciting three men to murder her husband.

Miss Justice Carroll imposed a life sentence for the murder and three concurrent sentences of seven years on the soliciting charges. The convictions on the soliciting charges are also being appealed.