A killer who went AWOL from jail just months after being extradited for a similar offence keeps being let out because he’s a prison warden’s pet, it’s been claimed.
James Meehan went AWOL three weeks ago — just months after he was extradited from the Republic and sentenced to another ten months behind bars.
He had gone on the run to Kells, Co Meath, where he has personal connections.
This week he was spotted there driving around in a black Seat and helping another person carry some shopping into their house.
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The last time it took 17 months and a lengthy, and extremely costly, legal battle to have him brought back to Northern Ireland after Meehan fought the extradition order.
Now jailhouse sources say Meehan, who murdered Jim McFadden in Derry in 2007, has been getting special treatment because he was a well-known snitch.
James McFadden
Sources also revealed Meehan is a handy tradesman and saved the Prison Service thousands by building them a new unit.
“That’s the prison service for you mate, they always look after their jailhouse touts no matter what they get up to,” said a former lag who served with Meehan.
“That’s why so many of all the same faces get chance after chance after chance — it’s reward for years of passing on information to prison security and governors.
“Burren staff and the governor are always overruled by higher management when it comes to these individuals, unfortunately.
“Burren staff don’t get a look-in but all the flak falls on them when things go wrong with those types of prisoners who constantly get returned to Burren only to f**k up again. It’s madness because when they raise concerns they’re told ‘we make the decisions, you just do what your here to do and that’s rehabilitate prisoners’, and they do, to be fair.
“You get the odd balloon screw who causes problems but the majority of screws in Burren actually try to help get deserving prisoners their life licence and release.
“It’s so easy to notice now when you see the same faces going up and down from Maghaberry to Burren failing drug tests and up to all sorts of sh*t that something’s rotten in Denmark.
“Burren staff have told me themselves they raise reservations and concerns about these people on a regular basis and they get overruled, only for the sh*t to hit the fan and the flak falls on them.
“It’s a joke. Meehan was a prison service pet in Maghaberry and Magilligan because he was really good and building stuff, he was really handy.
“He was making and building things for them which saved them loads of money as they didn’t have to pay him.
“He practically built an entire new living accommodation in Foyleview for prisoners getting home leave, saving the prison service thousands.
“He built everything — sheds, living spaces — and was flat-out working for the prison. He was basically an off-the-books prison tradesman who saved the Prison Service literally tens of thousands and I’m not joking you.
“So of course they were always going to look after him.”
And a source says Meehan had a nickname.
They said: “He was known as ‘Jimmy Dollars’ by other cons who liked to make fun of him because he looked like one of those old gangsters from those old American gangster films where all the bad guys have twisted, ugly messed-up faces.”
An international police hunt is currently under way for 55-year-old Meehan who failed to return to Magilligan prison three weeks ago to complete his life sentence for the murder of Jim McFadden in Derry in 2007.
Jim McFadden’s family
Mr McFadden’s daughters Danielle Bradley and Ashling Graham have said they believe the decision to grant him temporary release again had allowed him to abscond for a third time.
The family said they had objected to him getting day release before and this time, given that he had gone on the run before.
This paper revealed in October 2022 how Meehan had gone on the run to Kells, where he has family.
When he absconded two years ago Meehan had been part of a pre-release scheme and had been staying in Burren House prison wing in Belfast but had been allowed to go to an address in Limavady at the weekend.
However, on October 9, 2022, after his curfew was activated, the Limavady address was visited by authorities and Meehan was not there.
He was returned to Magilligan Prison last February.
Meehan was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of popular ‘Gentle’ Jim McFadden in May 2007.