John Sweetman
speaker
14,905 appearances
34 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2025
last heard today
John Sweetman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 34 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 8.
Appearances
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In two thousand and three, Gallagher moved to Straban in Northern Ireland to be closer to his extended family.
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Straban sits less than a mile from Gallagher's hometown of Lifford, across the river Foyle and over the border in County Donegal.
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It was only a twenty minute drive from Bali Buffet and Stranolur, where members of the Gillespie family still lived.
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The man who had killed Anne and Annie was now living freely within a short drive of the communities forever marked by their debts.
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And while Gallagher was living in Straban, the legal landscape around his case began to shift.
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For years, politicians had retained significant influence over the detention and release of those found guilty but insane.
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Gallagher's absconding in two thousand and the public outrage that followed exposed the weaknesses of that system.
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In two thousand six, the Irish government enacted the Criminal Law Insanity Act.
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The legislation abolished the old verdict of guilty but insane and replaced it with not guilty by reason of insanity.
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More significantly, decisions about detention and release would no longer rest with politicians.
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Those powers were transferred to an independent mental health review board.
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The change would prove critical.
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Neither the Gillespie family nor the wider public knew it yet.
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But the new law had opened a door that Gallagher would eventually walk through.
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Twenty years after the murders, the Gillespie family were still waiting for a sense of justice that had never arrived.
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As relatives prepared for a commemorative mass in Stranaler in two thousand eight, Anne's uncle spoke publicly about the family's frustration.
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He said We have gone through all the emotions heartache, pain, bitterness, anger.
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We were even afraid at one stage that Gallagher might still be a danger to the rest of us.
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Showing 1041–1060 of 14,905 · page 53 of 746
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