A District Court judge has told the Catherine Nevin murder trial that it is totally untrue that he was having some sort of irregular sexual affair with Mrs Nevin. Judge Donnchadh O'Buachalla was responding to a question by Defence Counsel Patrick McEntee. The judge also said that he had never stayed overnight at that Nevins' pub, Jack White's Inn.
Judge O'Buachalla added that he never had keys to the premises and had never seen any set of keys. Former cleaner, Jane Murphy, had told the jury that she took phone calls from the Judge from Arklow and that he had visited and stayed. Two other former members of staff, Elizabeth Hudson and Bernie Fleming, claimed that Mrs Nevin had told them that the Judge had keys to the premises.
Judge O'Buachalla was well known at Jack White's Inn. He presides at court sittings in Wicklow and Wexford and, between 1993 and 1996, visited Jack White's Inn two or three times a week. He also golfed in the area and said that he knew Tom and Catherine Nevin very, very well and had excellent relationships with both of them. He dined at the popular hostelry with his wife, family and in-laws, two nights before Tom Nevin's murder. Asked by Defence Counsel Patrick McEntee about an implication that he was having some sort of irregular sexual affair with Catherine Nevin, he replied, "It is not so... It is totally untrue" and he said that he was not aware of any happening that might have given rise to that suggestion.
Plastic surgeon Dr Michael Early said that he has operated on Mrs Nevin on three occasions. In July 1990, he performed liposuction, a tummy tuck at St. Vincent's Hospital the following February and in September 1991, Mrs Nevin had surgery on her eyelids, which can leave the patient with black eyes. The former Sinn Féin member, John Jones, who claims that Catherine Nevin solicited him to murder her husband, gave evidence that Mrs Nevin once came to him with black eyes and bandaged hands and said that Tom was responsible. William McClean claimed that sometime in 1990, Mrs. Nevin solicited him in her private room at St Vincent's Private Hospital. A witness from St. Vincents said today that Mrs Nevin had a private room at the hospital in October 1990.
