Veronica Guerin’s killer Brian Meehan is a step closer to freedom as he is set to be moved to an open prison ‘within days.’
The Star has learned that Prison bosses intend to move Meehan, 55, to Shelton Abbey open prison in Co Wicklow in the coming days, to progress his life sentence.
We have also learned that the killer, who has served 21 years behind bars for the murder of the Sunday Independent journalist, has been assigned his own personal probation officer - and will be given his own dorm at the open prison.
Sources say the authorities in the Irish Prison Service have been preparing for Meehan’s move for several months - and it is expected that he will now be moved there within days.
The decision also would have been run by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, who will also have the ultimate say on Meehan’s eventual release.
“Many prisoners at Shelton Abbey are sharing a dorm, but space will be made available to give Meehan his own accommodation,” a source told this paper.
It is also understood that Meehan, who is currently in Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison, is serving his time on a special landing for ‘lifes,’ where he enjoys more freedoms than other lags.
Meehan is allowed to come and go as he pleases to the prison’s kitchen, where he can cook his own food.
Sources say he also has been availing of the services of a personal addiction counsellor - in further efforts to prove he can live on the outside.
Meehan’s move to Shelton Abbey will mean he will be entitled to temporary leave, days out, more courses, and eventually be entitled to full release.
Sources say with such a move the killer could be fully released from custody within the next two or three years.
Meehan was jailed for life over the shocking murder of Ms Guerin and has now served 21 years behind bars.
The three judges at the Special Criminal Court who convicted the drug dealer in 1999 did not recommend how many years he should serve.
He was given life for the murder and a further five to 25 years for drugs and firearms charges, to run concurrently.
Meehan spent most of his time in the maximum security Portlaoise Prison before being moved to Wheatfield in 2019.
Tragic Veronica was shot dead on June 26, 1996, as she sat in traffic lights on the Naas dual carriageway in Dublin - in a shocking crime carried out on the orders of crime boss John Gilligan.
A two-man hit team on a motorbike opened fire.
Meehan was driving and the late Patrick “Dutchy” Holland was the shooter who fired six shots at the journalist.
Holland was never charged with her murder due to lack of evidence but gardai named him in a subsequent drugs court case as the trigger man.
The career criminal denied it up until his death in an English prison at 70 years of age in 2009. Meehan was convicted on the evidence of Russell Warren, a member of John Gilligan’s drugs gang who turned State evidence.
Guerin’s brother Jimmy has previously said that Meehan showed no remorse for his crime, and does not deserve early release.
“He showed no remorse for Veronica’s murder throughout the whole trial. He was as cocky as hell and didn’t care less.
“I knew this day would come and they’d put him on a pre-release programme.
“My understanding is he cannot be released unless it is approved by a ministerial order.
“What minister in his right mind will release Meehan, especially in the year of her 25th anniversary?
“He is still young at 55 and it would be wrong and inappropriate for him to have his freedom while she is dead,” he said.
In 2017, Meehan lost a final appeal to overturn his conviction.
He sought a challenge against the Court of Appeal’s April 2016 judgment refusing to certify his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.
Meehan tried to argue “new or newly discovered facts” emerged during the trial of John Gilligan, who was cleared of Ms Guerin’s murder in 2001.
But judges described his bid as an “abuse of process” and dismissed the application.
He then asked the Supreme Court to hear a challenge on that decision but it was ruled he had not shown the proposed appeal was necessary.
Meehan, from Crumlin in Dublin, was convicted in 1999 after a 31-day trial before the non-jury Special Criminal Court of Ms Guerin’s murder and other offences involving firearms and drugs.
The prosecution claimed he was the driver of a motorcycle which pulled up alongside the crime reporter’s car on June 26, 1996.
The mum of one died after the pillion passenger shot her.
Notorious gangster Patrick ‘Dutchy’ Holland was previously named in court as the man who shot dead Ms Guerin.
In an autobiography, Holland, who died in an English prison in 2009, claims he never killed anyone.
“I never killed anyone let alone Veronica Guerrin,” he said, “and if I did, why would I come back of my own accord to England?
“I was never even interviewed about that yet the press all say that I killed Veronica Guerrin ... rest her soul.”
Holland died as he was serving an eight-year prison sentence at HMP Wandsworth in the UK for a botched €12.8 million honey-trap kidnap plot.
Dutchy first came to prominence in this country after he joined John Gilligan’s drug gang in the 90s.
He became the first member of pint-sized gangster’s crew to be jailed - when he was locked up in 1997 for possession of cannabis.
During his trial at the Special Criminal Court, Garda Marion Cusack said: I had formed the opinion that Patrick Holland was the man who shot dead Veronica Guerin on June 26th, 1996.”
