In a strongly-worded judgment delivered last week, High Court judge Elizabeth Dunne refused to allow London police to extradite Dubliner Martin Kerrigan, raising major questions in relation to the Met's handling of a probe into the murder of 31-year-old Kerrywoman Catherine Corridan in 1994. Martin Kerrigan's brother Samuel was convicted of her murder last year.

Catherine Corridan disappeared while living in London in 1994. Her body was not found until 10 years' later, in wooded ground at Ealing in west London. Samuel Kerrigan had attended a party with Corridan on the night when she was last seen alive. He told police that he had gone to her flat unannounced and found her body. He admitted robbing the dead woman and disposing of her body in a shallow grave but emphatically denied that he was the murderer.

Catherine Corridan was working at a school for the blind in Middlesex at the time she disappeared in 1994. Met officers targeted former road-sweeper Samuel Kerrigan as the chief suspect after a 'cold case' review nearly a decade later.

Delivering her judgment in the extradition case last week, Dunne stated it was clear the London Met pressurised Samuel Kerrigan to believe his brother Martin would be tried on a robbery charge if he did not "cooperate" with the murder probe, raising significant questions in relation to the Met's handling of the investigation into the Kerry woman's killing.

Dunne said that the purpose of the extradition request appeared to be an attempt to strike fear into both Kerrigan brothers to facilitate a prosecution in the murder case. In what was described by one legal source as "significantly strong wording for an extradition judgement", Dunne found that there was "an improper purpose in initiating the extradition proceedings" by the London Metropolitain Police. In light of these circumstances, it would be "unjust, oppressive and invidious" to extradite Martin Kerrigan on the Met's request, the judge found.