Leading senior counsel George Birmingham is set to head a commission of investigation into the Dean Lyons affair, The Irish Times has learned. Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent, reports.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell will bring proposals to Government to set up such an investigation in the next two weeks.
This follows a recommendation from senior counsel Shane Murphy, who conducted a preliminary inquiry for the Government into how the homeless drug addict came to confess to killing two women in their home in the grounds of St Brendan's psychiatric hospital, Grangegorman, Dublin, in March 1997. Charges against him were later withdrawn, and the Garda Síochána issued an unprecedented apology to his family for their charging of an innocent man.
The commission of investigation will be set up under new inquiry legislation, and will have the power to compel witnesses and discover documents.
Mr Birmingham is one of the most experienced senior counsel in criminal law and works mainly for the prosecution, although he has also defended some high-profile cases. He conducted the preliminary inquiry into clerical child sex abuse in the Ferns diocese.
The issues to be examined are: how Dean Lyons came to be charged with the double murder; how the charges came to be dropped later; and why no one else has been charged with the murder.
Another man, Mark Nash, confessed to the murders, outlining details that could only have been known to someone at the scene. He was being questioned at the time about the killing of a Roscommon couple in August 1997. Nash is serving life imprisonment for those murders. He later withdrew his confession to the Grangegorman murders, and has never been charged. Seven months later the charges against Mr Lyons were dropped.
Mr Murphy was asked to inquire into how Dean Lyons "came to make the confession and what lessons can be learned from that occurrence, in an effort to ensure that anything similar does not happen again". It is understood to have involved an examination of documents rather than the interviewing of witnesses. It is also understood that it uncovered a number of procedural issues, concerning in particular the treatment of vulnerable people during questioning. Special expert help may be brought in by Mr Birmingham to examine this aspect of the investigation.
Earlier this year gardaí began a "cold case" examination of DNA evidence, using forensic techniques that have been developed since the murders. The samples to be retested have been stored at the forensic science laboratory at Garda headquarters since they were initially gathered. The preliminary results were expected earlier this year. They could be added to the Garda file on the case and allow criminal charges to be pursued.
Sylvia Sheils (59) and Mary Callinan (61) were stabbed to death in their beds in March 1997. They appeared to have been the victims of a frenzied knife attack.
Mr Lyons was arrested and made an elaborate and detailed confession to the killings. The charges against him were later withdrawn. He died afterwards in England.