“I, for one, certainly won’t be watching it.”
Justice Minister Helen McEntee has criticised a new documentary series featuring interviews with Irish criminal John Gilligan.
The minister called on producers of the Virgin Media programme Confessions Of A Crime Boss to reflect on “what they are looking to achieve” with their documentary.
The series, which aired on Monday evening, has drawn controversy, with Jimmy Guerin, the brother of murdered journalist Veronica Guerin, also criticising it for featuring Gilligan.
Guerin, an investigative reporter was killed by members of Gilligan’s gang in 1996, however, the crime boss was acquitted of her murder after a 43-day trial at the Special Criminal Court.
Asked on her opinion of the series, Minister McEntee said:
“To be quite honest this is a man that has created misery for so many people in so many communities and I know there’s a lot of people and families and communities that are very upset by the fact that this documentary is on this evening.
“I think the producers maybe need to think about what they’re trying to achieve by showing this programme.
“He’s someone who has been convicted of very serious offences and I, for one, certainly won’t be watching it.”
Producers defend Virgin Media series focusing on John Gilligan
Speaking to Newstalk on Monday, the producer of Confessions of a Crime Boss, David Harvey, defended the series and said that stories like this “should be told.”
“We made it because we were offered an opportunity to spend some time with John Gilligan,” he said.
“As an opportunity to put John Gilligan on the record for a company like ours, that specialises in making international crime television, it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
“I believe stories like this should be told.”
“It is Gilligan telling his story, but Gilligan telling his story within a framework that allows the truth to come out.”
With groundbreaking interview access, former crime boss John Gilligan discusses his infamous stint in the Irish underworld. Fans of true crime will not want to miss this!
NEW: Confessions of a Crime Boss starts tonight at 10pm on Virgin Media One#ConfessionsOfACrimeBoss pic.twitter.com/fDzsoIHMzt
— Virgin Media Television (@VirginMedia_TV) September 4, 2023
It was reported that on Tuesday (September 5) Gilligan had been fined and given a suspended sentence by a Spanish judge after admitting to smuggling cannabis and sleeping pills into Ireland and being in possession of a weapon.
Released from Irish prison in October 2013 after serving 17 years for trafficking cannabis resin, Gilligan was held after Spanish police raided his Torrevieja home in October 2020.
Police found buried in Gilligan’s back garden what they described as a rare Colt Python -357 Magnum, and claimed after his arrest it could have been used to kill Guerin.
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