An assistant Garda commissioner said yesterday in court that Mrs Catherine Nevin, who is on trial for murder, told him her husband drank a litre of whiskey a day and had at times assaulted her.
As the retrial of the former publican for the murder of her husband entered its third day, counsel for Mrs Nevin said she could not recollect ever making those comments to the officer.
Assistant Commissioner Jim McHugh, who at the time of the killing of Tom Mr Nevin on March 19th, 1996, was in charge of the Garda south-eastern division, also told the Central Criminal Court that although Mrs Nevin's bedroom was in a state of disorder, it didn't appear to have been systematically searched by the raiders who killed her husband.
Mrs Nevin (48) has denied murdering her husband Thomas Nevin (54), on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, near Brittas Bay, Co Wicklow. She has also denied three counts of soliciting named men to kill him.
Mr McHugh said he visited the scene on the morning of the murder. Mrs Nevin's bedroom was in "a general state of disorder".
He said he went downstairs and was introduced to Mrs Nevin in the sitting-room. "She conveyed the impression that she was suffering from shock and was traumatised," he told the court.
Mrs Nevin told him that her husband had dropped two customers home at 12.10 a.m. that day and had returned 15 minutes later. The only other person then on the premises was Mr Dominic McElligott, a Garda sergeant in Avoca. Mrs Nevin said she let him out and, after speaking to Tom briefly, took a glass of Scotch she had earlier been drinking and went up to bed.
"She said she was awakened by a masked man who had a knife and he was pushing her into the pillows or pillow and was shouting, `where's the f . . . ingjewellery? - I'll f . . . ing kill you.'
"She said the light in the room was off but there was some light shining in the door from the corridor."
She described being bound by her hands and feet and then these being tied together. She heard a sound similar to a saucepan falling on the floor. She could not say how long the raiders stayed but she heard the noise of two motor vehicles driving a way.
She eventually succeeded in undoing the knots and made her way to the telephone on the bedside locker. "She said she tried to dial three nines to seek assistance but in the process the receiver fell to the floor."
She then went downstairs, where she tried to open the front door more fully with her hands, which were still tied behind her back. When she couldn't do it, she pressed the panic alarm button at the door and stayed there, waiting for the gardai to arrive.
Mr McHugh also told the jury of other conversations he had with Mrs Nevin. On a visit to Jack White's Inn on March 23rd, 1996, in the company of Det Garda James Hanley, he said Mrs Nevin spoke to him about her late husband. "She told me that he drank about a litre of whiskey a day," he said. On March 28th 1996, he again spoke to Mrs Nevin. "She said that he didn't have a great brain but what he did have he used very effectively. She said he was an alcoholic and could be very violent at times, and that he assaulted her on more than one occasion, and that because of that she was hospitalised on one particular occasion."
He also said that Mrs Nevin had expressed concern that information given by her to the gardai had been published in newspapers.
Cross-examined on this point, Mr McHugh agreed with Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, that if this were so, Mrs Nevin was entitled to believe there might be a problem with confidentiality. Mr McHugh said he could not accept that leaks were made by gardai but that it was a fact that some of the information provided in Mrs Nevin's statement was published.
Mr MacEntee put it to him that some of the newspaper reports quoted "Garda sources". Mr McHugh replied that with respect to journalists, they "sometimes attribute things to sources which are not accurate".
Mr MacEntee also put it to Mr McHugh that Mrs Nevin didn't recollect portions of the comments attributed to her and "doesn't recollect at all talking about Tom's drinking or his violence towards her or for that matter about their intimate relationship". Mr McHugh said there was no doubt that she had made those remarks.
The court also heard a claim that Jack White's Inn was in the "bad books" of Arklow gardai.
Mr MacEntee put it to Det Garda Paul Comiskey, one of two officers first to arrive at the scene of the killing: "The gardai in Arklow don't greatly like Mrs Nevin, do they?"
Det Garda Comiskey replied: "I wouldn't say that, Judge, I wouldn't say there are any difficulties between the gardai in Arklow and Mrs Nevin, or indeed Mr Nevin . . ."
The detective said he was aware that two members of the gardai stationed at Arklow had been suspended from duty in the 1990s but he was not aware of the content of allegations against them.
Mr MacEntee asked was he not aware that a 15-year-old relative of Mr Tom Nevin's, who had been working at Jack White's Inn in 1991, had alleged that two Arklow gardai had given her a lift in their patrol car and after one was dropped off, the other had made a sexual advance to her in the patrol car. Was he not aware that Mr and Mrs Nevin had made statements in relation to the allegation? The detective said he was aware two gardai were suspended and that Dublin gardai had investigated the alleged incident but he didn't know "the ins and outs" of the allegation or who the person making it was.
Mr MacEntee said the allegation was that the girl had been sexually molested. He said that after the incident Jack White's pub, which he said had been "a popular place" with gardai, was in their "bad books" and that all but a few senior gardai had withdrawn their custom.
The trial continues today.