Two pairs of ladies panties, prison officers accused of lying and a video tape which John Gilligan has never viewed as he maintains the Governor of the prison has refused to give him a video player.

Strutting like a bantam cock into court the silver haired, stocky and smiling John Gilligan is a diminutive but dangerous character. Styling himself as some sort of latter day Perry Mason, Gilligan lugs his legal files and papers into court in a large Dunne’s Stores better value beats them all shopping bag.

As he takes the piss out of Portlaoise prison, taunts the authorities, challenges the Judge to step aside for being biased, Gilligan is certainly the one getting value for money here as he turns the court into a three-ringed-circus.

His prosecution for having a mobile phone in his cell, cell 17 on E block in Portlaoise prison has now run on for over eighteen months. Locals in Portlaoise know when Gilligan is up in court as the Main Street is closed down for the massive security operation required to bring the crime boss to and from the prison. “Gilligan must be up today,” they say, as the sirens herald his arrival surrounded by dozens of prison officers, gardai, armed detectives and soldiers in battle fatigues.

“The whole thing is a bloody joke sure. He’s just having a laugh and is turning the whole thing into a circus,” shrugs one officer.

“I’ve been on murder trials that didn’t cost as much or last as long,” confirms another, signalling their frustration over this marathon mobile phone trial.

Gilligan may be the court jester here, but he’s far from anyone’s fool.

Sitting next to the convicted drugs kingpin there is a strange and sinister dynamic at play. This 57-year-old  silver fox could be anyone’s grandfather but Gilligan will forever be carved in the Irish psyche as the gang boss responsible for the death of Sunday Independent journalist, Veronica Guerin, even though he was tried and acquitted of her murder.

“These days, he’s more a danger to himself than anyone else. There are plenty of young turks out there, coked off their heads and looking to make a name for themselves as the ones that gunned down Gilligan. They’re psychopaths and they’re our customers,” is the inside view of one senior officer.

While Gilligan went down for a lengthy 28 year stretch on a drugs rap, later reduced to a 20 year sentence on appeal, prison authorities indicate that he could be back on the streets in less than three years. Gilligan has been in prison for over ten years and in latter times has tried to present himself as a model inmate after previous episodes where he ended up back before the courts for threatening to kill two prison officers and their families.

These days he seems bizarrely chummy with some prison officers, chatting and joking on first name terms. Cross examining prison officers in the witness box last week Gilligan was ever so nice as he called on each in turn to confirm that he was always of good behaviour, courteous and respectful. To a man they agreed he was mannerly and made no problem for them.

“Sure, over the last six years I’ve been a very, very good boy,” remarked a seemingly chuffed Gilligan to the amusement of the court which is full of people in uniform. His son Darren (33) is waiting for him with a lever folder of documents.

“Is it okay, can I sit here,” the son asks the prison officer.

“Of course you can, yeah,” replies Gilligan asserting his authority.

But this trial is far from a laughing matter. There is a great deal at stake. Gilligan sees a chink of light at the end of the tunnel with his release date in sight. He needs to find a chink in the State’s case on this mobile phone charge as it could potentially tag on a further five years to his time in jail, if the penalty is applied consecutively. At the rate this trial is progressing Gilligan will be due for release before it’s concluded.

People have died for making calls from mobiles in Portlaoise prison. In October 2007, armed robber John Daly was gunned down shortly after his release from Portlaoise apparently in retaliation for the crackdown on contraband that followed his infamous call to Joe Duffy’s Liveline programme from his cell. Gilligan too is no stranger to such breaches of prison rules as he brazenly conducted a lengthy interview with Hot Press magazine from behind bars in 2008, resulting in another major clampdown much to the ire of other prisoners of which at least one later seriously assaulted Gilligan.

The gist of the State’s case in this instance is that on the night of July 29^th, 2008 prison officer Martin Dunne overheard John Gilligan having a muffled conversation in Cell 17 in E wing, which had its spy hole blocked. He reported his suspicions to his superiors and the next morning shortly after 8am, a search party was sent into remove Gilligan from his cell and look for contraband. In two separate searches by Chief Officer Tom Dunne, ACO’s Crowley and Gary Chisolm, and officers, Leslie Sides, Damian Ging and Jim Fortune they found a Nokia mobile phone hidden in cling film in a bin, a phone charger, a makeshift phone charger head, a Meteor SIM card, a syringe barrel, eight and a half blue tablets and two pairs of ladies G-string panties.

The mind boggles.

In his defence John Gilligan is challenging the credibility of the State’s witnesses, the continuity, consistency and veracity of evidence, as one of the key evidence bags containing the mobile phone was wrongly labelled, July 28^th, 2008, when it was secured in the safe in the Chief’s office. He alleges victimisation and even intimidation as he contends that three other prisoners serving time with him - Joe Clarke, Paddy Forde and Derek Devoy - were assaulted by prison staff.  He sought the court’s approval to have all prison officer witnesses to be removed from the body of the court until they give evidence so that they cannot copy cat. Judge Gerard Haughton agreed. He regularly interrupts prosecuting State solicitor Donal Dunne, charging him with leading the witness. Very often the Judge agrees and sustains the defendant’s objection. When the answers to his cross-examination of prison officers under oath are not going his way Gilligan regularly accuses them of lying.

Gilligan resorts to an article in The Irish Examiner as evidence that there are hundreds of mobile phones confiscated in Irish prisons annually and yet he is being singled out for prosecution.

There are some curious exchanges as Gilligan seems to relish cross-examining prison staff.

“How many phones were found in the prison in 2009?” he asks Chief Officer, Tom Dunne.

“A large number, I couldn’t put a figure on it. Everything written in newspapers is not accurate. I think certainly those figures are not accurate.”

“How many prosecutions then,” presses Gilligan?

“It depends on the circumstances. To my knowledge there are not too many prosecutions taken,” replied the Chief Officer.

Quizzing, ACO Gary Chisolm about the filing cabinet in his cell. “The filing cabinet, describe it, what’s it like?”

“It’s only small, about your height,” the riposte.

Gilligan pressures officer Leslie Sides as to where he found the eight and half blue tablets.

“On the locker shelf,” he replied.

“That’s totally untrue. It’s a standard locker, there’s no shelf. Where were the tablets,” asked Gilligan.

“Concealed in a sock,” confirmed officer Sides.

“What colour socks,” asked Gilligan?

“White,” replied officer Sides, but again Gilligan argues, “I’ve no white socks.” Following analyses the court heard that the tablets turned out to be perfectly legal.

There are regular and lengthy adjournments to verify John Gilligan’s claims that he is being obstructed and prejudiced in his defence. Gilligan maintains that he has not been allowed access to a video recorder to view his video-taped interview with investigating Garda officers.

“This is an abuse of my human rights, my constitutional rights. They come here and are being economical with the truth and misleading the court. I won’t mislead the court, as I have respect for the court. I made a request to Governor Downey for a video and other items and he wouldn’t even write them down,” charged Gilligan to Judge Haughton.  Moments earlier Gilligan accused the Judge of being against him. “They are constantly trying to improve their case but their case is faulty in roughly ten ways and you are biased, not impartial and independent towards me and you change the goal posts all the time. I have sent a letter of complaint about you to the President of the District Court.”

“If I’m satisfied a request was made for a video player and not granted I’m going to strike out the charge,” the Judge crucially cautioned the prosecution, adding, “I’ll rise until you establish the situation.”

“Would it be okay, if I go and stretch my legs?” Gilligan jests with the prison officer detail guarding him.

“I can’t help you there. The only video evidence I know anything about is before Liam O’ Neill,” (the Chairman of the GAA Leinster Council) quipped Officer Sean Dempsey, the Laois senior football team manager, in reply.

After a lengthy recess and a trawl through the Governor’s parade log book, Assistant Governor, Mr Martin O’ Neill gave extensive evidence, corroborated by Chief Officers Martin Murphy and Joe Nolan, that there was no written trace of John Gilligan ever requesting a video player to view the tape which was handed over to him on August 5^th, 2009. There were numerous entries of him requesting copies of warrants, photo-copying, post, dry cleaning, shirt ironing, a play station, and a list of lost property, phone calls and on several occasions, a barber for a haircut. No mention of a video recorder and John Gilligan accused Mr O’ Neill too of lying. Judge Haughton ordered the trial to proceed, saying it was incomprehensible to believe on the basis of the evidence and in view of all the assistance otherwise given to Gilligan, that a request for a video player had ever been made.

With the case having run through from 10.30am, at 4.30pm Judge Haughton brought it to a conclusion for the day, proposing to resume on Friday, February 12^th.

“Any difficulty with that date, Mr Gilligan,” he queried.

“No, I’ll be available,” replied the defendant as he readied his documents back into the Dunne’s Stores bag.

Outside, three jeep loads of heavily armed soldiers flank the steps of the court house and line the footpaths on either side.

The posters in the shop windows along Main Street were for The Great European Circus. “Come See the Amazing Snake Man,” they dared.

And as if to prove the point, when the case resumed on Friday John Gilligan attempted to crack the whip and have prison Governor Edward Whelan jump through hoops in a series of tense exchanges as the prisoner cross examined and repeatedly accused the Governor of lying.

The prison itself it seems was more like a zoo than a circus at one time as John Gilligan maintained that the inmates were not just tolerated but facilitated in having budgies, parrots, cockatoos, fridges and plasma screens and even allowed to have mobile phones in their cells.

Governor Whelan insisted that within days of officially taking up his post on April 30^th, 2007 he ordered a security review of E1, instructed a thorough search and the removal of all prohibited articles. He denied Gilligan’s contention that the clampdown only came after John Daly had phoned Joe Duffy’s Liveline and the new strict regime was ordered by his boss, the Minister for Justice.

Proving that he was still nobody’s clown, Gilligan also produced documentary evidence that he had already been punished on a P19 disciplinary report for having contraband, including the blue tablets which had been deemed to be ecstasy by the prison authorities but later established as legal medication. He alleged double jeopardy and a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights under article 6:1.

The court heard extensive evidence from security officers from Vodafone, 02 and Meteor concerning the alleged use of a mobile phone from his cell by Gilligan.

Ms Noreen Keating, Fraud and Security Manager with Meteor, gave details of what prosecuting solicitor Donal Dunne described as a “continuous stream of traffic” over two days in July 2008. In total there were 181 texts, calls, top-ups and internet access. All the outgoing calls and texts were to six numbers registered to women and men in Tallaght, Ballyfermot, Ballymun, Lucan and Swords.

The case before Judge Gerard Haughton trundles on and is scheduled to continue at 2pm on March 11^th and resume again on March 29^th.