Category: Legal (Page 4 of 4)

The Lure of the Financial Affairs of the Convicted

2nd March 2010 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Yesterday in the High Court the ongoing story of Eamonn Lillis made a brief appearance. Lillis is serving his time in Wheatfield Prison in Dublin, anyone who reads the papers knows that his prisoner number is now 55511 and that he shares a landing with such high profile names as David Bourke and Finn Colclough.

But this latest twist in the story was of a far more practical nature. As Celine Cawley’s husband, Lillis was automatically the executor of her estate. Yesterday he relinquished that right and the role of executor was instead handed over to Celine’s brother and sister, Chris Cawley and Susanna Coonan.

A woman dies and the husband is accused of killing her these small details of a person’s death take on a new significance. Whether convicted of murder or manslaughter or even acquitted, once the husband has been looked at in this way small matters of probate become front page news. It’s actually quite unusual to see a story like this one, where the paper work has been filed at an early stage after conviction and matters appear to be running smoothly.

Compare the headlines in today’s papers, like this one or this, with the kind of stories that have appeared in the past. Joe O’Reilly had a five year battle with his wife’s family over what name should be put on her tombstone. Brian Kearney has hit the headlines for his attempted sale of the Hotel Salvia in Mallorca that he ran with his wife Siobhan. Both men were convicted of murdering their wives.

There were plenty of indignant front pages about attempts by John O’Brien to reclaim items belonging to his wife Meg Walsh, that gardai had seized when they were investigating him for her murder. Despite the fact that Mr O’Brien was acquitted of the crime his involvement in these matters has continued to generate substantial column inches.

Eamonn Lillis is the latest man to enter the exclusive club of high profile Irish wife killers. He was convicted last month of her manslaughter. Despite the fact that a jury of his peers have decided he did not intend to kill his wife, although he was responsible for her death, his financial affairs especially those that are in some way connected with his wife, will continue to make news.

There has already been indignant coverage of the fact that Lillis will inherit half his wife’s estate and a half share of the money raised from the sale of her company Toytown Films. I can see why these stories hit the headlines I’ve just seldom seen a case when the headlines is because someone isn’t doing something rather than because they are.

But then the Lillis case has been an unusual one in a lot of ways.

*******************************

In completely unrelated news tonight I am a contributor on a new TV3 series on Irish television called Aftermath. I was in last night’s episode talking about the murder of Swiss student Manuela Riedo in Galway. The episode is now up online on the TV3 website if you fancy a look.

No Sign of an Appeal from Lillis

27th February 2010 / Abigail / 3 Comments

As of close of business yesterday Eamonn Lillis had not lodged any appeal of his sentence or his conviction for manslaughter. This made the papers today because we’ve all become so used to seeing high profile appeals in murder and manslaughter cases. Finn Colclough’s appeal yesterday for example or the upcoming appeal of Sharon Collins and Essam Eid, the subjects of my book Devil in the Red Dress.

It was expected that Lillis would appeal, especially since his counsel Brendan Grehan SC, had asked for the jury to be discharged after they had been charged by Mr Justice Barry White. Appeals of convictions can only be taken on a legal matter since the jury’s decision cannot be questioned. Close of business day marked the latest time he could apply for an automatic appeal hearing. That doesn’t rule out an eventual appeal, it simply means it will be a lot harder to do so as he will first need to apply for leave to appeal with the Court of Criminal Appeal.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not there is an eventual appeal. If not then Lillis will have the distinction of being one of the very few high profile convicts not to have appealed his sentence or conviction after pleading his innocence throughout his trial. It’s the usual codicil after a high profile trial.

I could understand why he wouldn’t appeal though. Throughout the trial he was extremely steadfast about his intention to shield his daughter from as much further stress as possible. Of course we shall never know exactly why an appeal isn’t taken, and at this stage one still might be, but it is an interesting addendum to what has been a fascinating trial.

And We’re Back to The Subject of Sentences

7th February 2010 / Abigail / 0 Comments

No this isn’t a writing related post, I’m not talking those kind of sentences. I’m talking about the sentences handed down by Irish courts, the Central Criminal Court in particular and Eamonn Lillis’s sentence to be specific.

Since he was given seven years on Friday the papers and the airwaves have been full of condemnation of judge Barry White’s sentence. I agree that seven years, or six years and eleven months to be precise, isn’t a lot for the taking of a human life but it’s not an unusual length for a manslaughter sentence in the Irish courts.

I’ve written here before about the need for more severe minimum sentences for crimes like manslaughter and rape but it’s an ongoing problem.

When I was asked on Twitter what I thought the sentence was going to be on Friday morning I said that I thought it would be in the area of seven to ten years. I was going by what I’d seen in previous trials and knowledge of the judge involved. As it turned out Mr Justice White said that he considered the correct sentence to be ten years, but reduced it on considering mitigating factors – chief of which appeared to be the level of media scrutiny Lillis can expect when he gets out of jail.

I’m not going near the whole media as mitigation thing. We do our job and Eamonn Lillis, or for that matter Jean Treacy, would not have been of interest if he hadn’t killed his wife. That’s the way it works. Newspapers wouldn’t waste the ink if stories like this didn’t sell papers. While I’ll admit that some of my colleagues might fan the flames of interest quite strenuously, they, or for that matter myself, would not be concerned with this kind of story if it didn’t pay the bills. As a species we are fascinated with our own kind. Crime allows us greater access to the workings of people’s lives and minds than we get in the normal paths of our daily lives. But I’m going off the point, this post is about sentences.

A lot of people are saying that Eamonn Lillis got what is perceived as a light sentence because he is rich. His route through life might have been eased by money but when it comes to the courts it generally makes very little difference. I’ve seen people at both ends of the social spectrum have the book thrown at them, for different reasons and I’ve seen sympathy shown just as diversely.

Finn Colclough, from Waterloo Road in Dublin, was given ten years for the manslaughter of Sean Nolan but it’s not just those with posh addresses. In April 2008 21-year-old Limerick student Jody Buston was sentenced to a mere 6 years for stabbing a pensioner in the heart after wandering into his house and mistaking the old man for a ghost. The year before three Limerick teenagers who had intentionally run over apprentice electrician Darren Coughlan after mistaking him for someone else were given a maximum of seven years. Finally in November last year the first person to be convicted in the new criminal courts complex at Parkgate Street was sentenced to ten years for stabbing a man outside a Galway pub.

If sentences are too short in the Irish court system it’s generally not due to some partiality of judges or an old boys club of partiality in terms of the accused, it’s because that’s the way the law is. It’s even worse when it comes to rapes. I’ve written here before about the Court of Criminal Appeal overturning the life sentence handed down to Philip Sullivan who raped two small boys. It’s a problem throughout the system and one, certainly that needs to be changed.

But shouting about it because of perceived social inequality is missing the point and allowing for the wider issue to be ignored. Eamonn Lillis didn’t get seven years because he’s a millionaire, he got it because that was what he was always going to get if convicted of manslaughter. The fault is with the system on this one, not the individual judges.

Lively Debate

16th October 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Last night I went to the inaugural Insight Debate at the National College of Ireland. It’s not something I’d normally have gone to (my college days are long behind me and there never seems to be any time) but as the motion was “this house believes that the scales of justice are tilted towards the criminal” I made the effort.

Given the day job it was a subject that I’m more than familiar with and one that often comes up in the courts – prolonged exposure to the court beat tends to send people either to the right or the left so discussions can get heated. Even in the controlled circumstances of a formal debate structure like last night, things got heated.

The lecture theatre was packed and there were plenty of familiar faces dotted around. I was live tweeting the debate, trying to get as many of the main points as I could but once the discussion was opened to the floor it was almost impossible to keep up.

This is a subject that will always get people’s blood up. Crime is something that affects everyone living in a society and we can’t avoid the latest escapades of a bewildering array of miscreants that seem to keep some red tops in business. Now granted, for me, a substantial drop in the crime rate would be fairly disastrous for the bank balance but it’s impossible to sit through trial after trial, especially at Circuit Court level, without forming some opinions about whether or not the criminal justice system works or not.

As I said, it’s a topic that comes up fairly frequently among my colleagues and I’ve often heard the opinion that working the court beat can actually make you sleep safer in your bed. It really is a case of the devil you know. You realise that the gardai, for the most part, do their jobs well and there are a lot less miscarriages of justice than you might previously have thought. Even though I’ve written here about some of the more peculiar decisions that are made in the courts, the reason I comment on them is because they are peculiar.

More often than not once you’ve sat through the horrific details of some crime with the absolute certainty that the tattooed thug beside you did everything he was accused of and probably more, you have the satisfaction of seeing a conviction at the end of it. Juries might be subject to certain flights of lunacy on occasion but for the vast majority of the time the bad guys go to jail and the innocent men walk free. It doesn’t always work but it mostly does and it’s the safest system we have. Having 12 random men and women who will not look on court proceeding with the jaundiced eyes that familiarity can breed, is a hell of a lot fairer for all concerned than any alternative I can think of.

It was fascinating to watch the debate and hear the comments that came from the floor. Certain issues stood out through repitition and showed current preoccupations. Rather unsurprisingly the subject of white collar crime was a recurring theme. It seemed to be a general consensus that many in the audience, regardless of which side of the motion they came down on, would rather see the prisons full of bankers than many of the others who currently lodge there. I could be wrong but I think that every speaker made a crack about John O’Donoghue’s ignominious departure from the post of Ceann Comhairle earlier this week. I get the feeling though that jokes about expenses are going to be satirical currency for many months, if not years, to come.

The idea of treating those who end up in the criminal justice system through disadvantage and drug addiction with a degree of compassion is one you see a lot in the Circuit courts. The idea that there are people who wouldn’t commit crimes if they could kick the drugs comes easily if you listen to sentencing after sentencing where the defence mitigation speech sounds the same. Education for those in the lowest economic groups and access for treatment for those who become addicted to expensive drug habits with no way to support them, would appear to be a no brainer.

The idea that those involved in the criminal justice system need to be treated like human beings instead of numbers arose on both sides of the debate. The more vulnerable amoung those accused of crimes deserve a way to get themselves out of the hole they are in and the system needs it’s checks and balances to ensure that those accused of a crime get a properly fair trial. We’re back to the jury on this, and the presumption of innocence.

This presumption is the cornerstone of Irish justice. It’s the way we do things here and it’s a far more dignified way to treat those in the dock. Even the dock in Irish courts no longer exists so that the accused is not stigmatised by having a set place to sit. OK so in practice they all sit in the same place, that seat formally known as the dock, but the principal is there.

The presumption of innocence seems to be the hardest part for those affected by crime to grasp. Why should someone who you know has done you wrong, because you were there or because you know the facts of the case, get to be treated like an innocent man.

I know it can be difficult for victims families in a murder trial when the accused swans in through the Four Courts gates ahead of them each morning before the trial. They find it galling to watch the defence successfully exclude reams of evidence that make up part of the complex case the gardai have painstakingly built. I can’t comment on the wrongs and rights of the evidence and the bail but while a trial is ongoing all you can if you are there to see justice for your loved one, is trust that things will work out. Most of the time they do.

It must be hard to watch someone you believe to be guilty treated with kid gloves but better that than an innocent man treated like the devil himself.

The flip side of this issue, which was returned to time and again by both the audience and the team proposing the motion, is that of victims rights. Ger Philpott from Advocates for Victims of Homicide (AdVic), spoke movingly of his experiences of the justice system as he watched the trial of the men accused of the murder of his nephew Russell Deane.

I’ve seen mothers of those killed thrown out of the court for crying as the story of their child’s last moments is recounted to the court. I know why their displays of emotion don’t play well with the defence but it’s always one of the most awkward bits of a trial when it happens. Victims don’t really have a place in the prosecution of a case. If they weren’t around for the events leading to their relation’s death they might not even be called as a witness. Often the only thing they can do is provide a victim impact statement at the very end, once a conviction has been secured. I’ve seen some very nasty characters indeed milk their status as an innocent defendant as a blatant way of twisting the hearts of their victims even more.

Crime by it’s very nature hurts those it happens to. Those wounds run deep and the criminal justice system doesn’t always help the healing process – one of the points thrown up the the audience was that even data protection legislation conspires against victims of violent crime and their families. Under these rules the gardai are forbidden from passing on their details to some of the support groups set up expressly to help them.

It was perhaps inevitable that the ayes would have it and the motion would pass. Our justice system is a complex thing built over centuries, in need of modernisation and streamlining perhaps but for the moment it’s the one we have to work with. When we read about the criminal gangs who maim, kill and wreak lives, then terrify those who could be witnesses to send them away it’s hard not to feel that this world we live in is a dark one indeed. We can be passionate about human rights and justice but if crime comes into your life it’s hard to keep that objectivity. It was great to see the subject debated so thoroughly though. It’s always good to challenge viewpoints and I’ll look forward to the next debate with interest.

I’m just playing around with some of the ideas thrown out last night here. I’m not saying which side I voted for merely continuing the discussion. Feel free to join in!

Murderers and Rapists and Some Figures

26th July 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

It’s been a long week and I haven’t been posting here as often as I should. I’ve missed a couple of court related things that I had meant to write up and apologies for that.

On Thursday for example the Court Service launched their annual report – big news when you’re in my line of work. I’ve linked to the synopsis of the main figures so I won’t go into them in detail but the one I was most concerned with was the murder stats. They were up once again, not because of an increase in murders, but because of the rate at which the courts are dealing with them. Since murders are my bread and butter work this was good news for me…and I know that other rises have been a cause of relief to colleagues who work in other areas as well.

I wasn’t around to write about the figures because I had to make a trip down to Galway for the sentencing of Gerald Barry for rape. He was sentenced on Friday to two life sentences. He’s already serving one for the murder of Manuela Riedo, the Swiss student he killed only eight weeks after this rape.

He will serve all three sentences at once, rather than one after the other. That’s the way sentences work here. Most will be concurrent, unless the crime was committed while on bail for a separate offence. It’s not a great rule and with an animal like Barry it just doesn’t seem fair.

Judge Paul Carney was extremely outspoken in his sentencing. He told Barry that he did not deserve to have the 25% off that every convicted man or women can look forward to as a carrot to encourage good behaviour in jail. This is another point on Irish sentencing that can be extremely hard to explain to those not familiar with the workings of Irish courts.

Why should someone who has killed someone in cold blood be entitled to the knowledge that the sentence they are handed will automatically be shorter than the one read out in court? It’s one of those things, like the fact that Irish judges cannot give a recommendation on the minimum part of a life sentence that should be served before the convicted is allowed to be eligible for bail. This is the situation in the UK but not here…an Irish life sentence can be as little as 12 years…but that’s something for another day.

All in all it’s been a very busy week. Next week the courts rise for their summer vacation and I will be back at the keyboard working on this year’s book. I must admit I’m looking forward to it.

Of Gangs and Justice…

30th June 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Today Dermot Ahern published the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009. It’s the latest in a series of changes to criminal justice laws here in Ireland that have been published in the last couple of weeks.

Last month the minister published the Criminal Procedure Bill 2009 with removes the Double Jeopardy rule, under which a person cannot be tried twice for an offence for which they have been acquitted. Under the proposed legislation there will be three exceptions to the rule; where new evidence becomes available, where a trial was “tainted” by intimidation of witnesses and perjury and where a judge gave a mistaken ruling on a point of law which subsequently led to an acquittal.

It’ll be very interesting to see if any familiar faces appear again in court if this legislation is passed. There have been a couple of high profile murder acquittals in the past couple of years which I’m sure the gardai and the DPP would love to revisit if they can.

Today’s publication deals with another highly contentious issue – that of organised crime. With gang violence a major problem in modern Ireland, gangland murder trials have become a fairly common occurrence. You can always tell when there’s one coming up on a Monday morning because Court 1 suddenly has a garda checkpoint outside it and everyone’s bags are checked and pockets emptied.

Defendants like Gary Campion, convicted in April of the murder of “Fat” Frankie Ryan. Campion is connected with the Dundon McCarthy gang in Limerick and was convicted in November 2007 of the murder of bouncer Brian Fitzgerald. Both these trials took place in Cloverhill Courthouse, a court where increased security is easier to arrange than in the historic Four Courts complex.

Under the new bill, which the Minister hopes to get passed into law before the Dail rises for the summer, those accused of gang crime, where there was a major problem with witnesses or juries being intimidated, could be tried by judge alone in the Special Criminal Court.

At the moment, the Special Criminal Court is reserved for paramilitary or terrorist crimes. The idea of extending it’s use to include those involved in criminal gangs is not a new one. Previous justice minister Michael McDowell had mooted it and there have been one or two of these cases tried there already.

In 1996, Brian Meehan, the only person tried for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, was convicted to life in the Special Criminal Court. But there has always been a lot of opposition to the idea on the basis of civil liberties. Almost as soon as it was published the Irish Council for Civil Liberties accused the bill of “trampling on the rule of law”.

I’ve heard arguments on both sides for the use of the Special Criminal. I must admit though that when you’ve sat through a trial where witness after witness will barely admit to their name on the stand or changes their story at the last minute it’s easy to see the sense in a trial where gardai will be permitted to give evidence of what was claimed in these cases. After all, is there that big a difference between some of the trials that have gone through the Special for those members of an “illegal organisation” and the facts of some of the cases that now take place under the gangland banner.

I remember being taught about the Diplock courts when I studied in Northern Ireland. We were told that all offences that involved firearms were treated as “scheduled offences” and could be tried in the Diplocks.

I’m sure that we’ll hear all the arguments for and against the changes in the law when the legislation is debated in the next few weeks. It’ll be a very interesting one to keep an eye on.

A Question of Immunity

22nd June 2009 / Abigail / 1 Comment

I’ve not been in court for the past week or so. Instead I’ve been working on The Novel. At the moment I’m reading through a hard copy of the manuscript and editing in preparation for a full rewrite. In practice this means my days involve not moving from whatever spot I park myself in the morning with occasion burst of movement to get food, water or any other basic need.

My days are counted in pages and chapters and my grasp on reality is, for the moment, slightly less than firm.

This morning I was on my way into town for groceries when I bumped into a colleague from the courts. It feels like I’ve been away for months, even though it’s only been a week or so.

In my moments of resurfacing into the real world I’ve been watching the ongoing controversy of the judges’ pay cuts. For any non Irish readers let me explain. The Irish economy is rather bolloxed at the moment as you may have heard. We’ve gone from being the poster child of economic boom to an illustration of how not to do things. We have crashed and burned quite spectacularly since the new year.

The government desperately needs to save money to try and keep some kind of check on a spiralling deficit. Consequently they are trying to persuade all public sector workers to agree to pay cuts and stop being such a strain on the national purse strings.

Now it would be easy to imagine that the Irish economy is almost entirely propped up by public sector workers who have job security the rest of us can only dream of, the strongest unions in the country and a bench marking process that was supposed to protect them from being worse paid than the private sector but has in many areas led to them being paid a lot more. But this isn’t a post about public sector workers or rather it is about one particular kind of public sector workers.

Judges do not have to take a pay cut. It’s in the constitution that they can’t be forced to. So the government have asked them to make a voluntary cut…a move which has so far proved a not particularly popular option.

I can see why people are so upset about the failure of 129 out of the countries 148 judges to volunteer for the cut. In a climate where there’s more bad news every day then the reluctance of a group who individually earn between €170,000 and €290,000 a year to make a gesture of solidarity is going to stick in most gullets.

But I can also see why they have constitutional protection in the first place. Judges need to be impartial and should not be in a position where they are tempted to make political decisions based on financial, or other, pressure. Justice should be impartial and it’s right that there should be some form of constitutional protection for that. The pay protection is there for the same reason as the protection from prosecution…because judges should not be vulnerable to any form of pressure when they are trying a case.

Now before everyone jumps on me I know that judges are human beings like the rest of us and are still public servants. It might be easy to forget that when you see them sailing through the corridors of the Four Courts preceded by their tipstaff carrying an impressive staff to announce their presence.

I know a lot of people would like to see an end to that kind of pomp and circumstance but for the moment that’s the way things are and that’s an argument for another day. It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out. I’ll be watching with interest.

The Fourth Estate in Irish Courts

22nd March 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Going into work yesterday was a little like being in school out of term. The Four Courts are buzzing any time they are in session and the quietness is particularly roaring out of hours. I’ve been to Saturday sittings before as well as Vacation Sittings (held during the two month summer recess) and always enjoy being in the building when the throng is noticeably absent.

Yesterday, there to wait for the jury in the Manuela Riedo trial to come to their verdict, it was one thing after another. A couple of things happened that really highlighted something that has irritated me for years…the attitude to the media here in Ireland.

Now I know there are places on earth where the authorities are a damn sight worse than here in Dublin, places where journalists work in danger of their life. I’m not suggesting I work in a repressive regime just that things aren’t as easy as they should be.

The main thing that happened yesterday that underlines my point was not particularly unexpected. In fact it happens on quite a regular basis if you work out of the courts. It shouldn’t…but it does.

We had taken our seats for the jury to resume their deliberations. As we had for the duration of the trial we all piled into the two benches where the accused sits. This is normal. There are no such things as press benches in the main courts of the Four Courts. It’s not like the English courts where a press bench is standard. We have to find space wherever we can but as press we’re allowed a much freeer reign than the public who have two allotted areas to watch justice being done from.

Usually the media sit either in the two benches behind the barristers or next to the accused. We have to hear what’s being said and since the acoustics in the 200 year old building leave something to be desired sitting as close to the judge as possible is preferable. If there are a lot of garda witnesses or the deceased in a murder trial had a large family the benches behind the barristers aren’t free. If the case is full of salacious detail the public benches fill up quickly as well. That leaves the seat beside the accused facing the jury.

Now to be honest this is probably the pick of the bunch anyway. The accused has to be able to hear what’ s being said about him so you can hear everything that’s said. Similarly you have a good vantage point to see reactions and the kind of details you need if you’re writing colour. There’s also a handy ledge that’s just right for a laptop or a computer.

It sounds, if you haven’t seen the courts, as if this means that we’re sitting on top of the accused. It’s not quite like that, these benches were designed to hold bunches of accused so they could potentially hold up to 20 people, if everyone squished a bit. These days, to give the accused a bit of space there wouldn’t be more than 10 of us sitting there. But sit there we do. The judge doesn’t complain, the defence don’t complain, the accused doesn’t complain. They all realise we’re just there to do our job.

That’s the way it usually is. But not yesterday. Yesterday we’d piled in as usual, leaving a large gap between us and Gerald Barry (as suggested by the regular prison guards since he had been known to lunge). The judge came in and sent the jury out again and we all settled down to wait.

Barry had been led back to his cell. He was in custody throughout the trial – he’s not a very nice man. We settled back with laptops, coffee and papers to wait it out. The regular prison officers weren’t in yesterday. It being a weekend. The guys who were in looked at us with contempt. We were cluttering up their nice courtroom with our junk.

One of them came over.

“Guys, seriously, the accused man deserves a fair trial. Youse shouldn’t be sitting there crowding him. You’re right across from the jury.”

“Yes, we know. We’ve been sitting here all week. We always sit here.”

“You shouldn’t be sitting there. It’s not right.”

And on it went for several minutes gathering more and more angry journos to argue the toss. Eventually we were left as we were, now rather irritated. We had been sitting there all week and we most definitely had not been crowding the accused. We’d been told not to by the weekday prison officers. For our own safety.

It might have been a storm in a teacup but it really isn’t an isolated occurrence. Earlier in the week we had been excluded for court while the defence looked for a day’s recess. Not only were the jury present while this request was granted, the press are allowed to sit through legal arguement (though we usually choose not to since we can’t write anything when the jury’s not in place).

Over the past two years while I’ve been down in the courts I’ve encountered this kind of attitude more than once. Prison officers who’ve tried to exclude me from rape cases (that happens quite a bit and has sometimes required the judge’s intervention), the whole court personnel moving into the judges chambers to hear evidence and having the door shut in my face. Gardai who’ve confiscated computers because they could secretly broadcast proceedings.

You really have to know what you are and what you are entitled to if you work that beat here in Ireland. As happened yesterday the familiarity of the challenge can result in quite a bolshie response but for god’s sake, we shouldn’t have to fight for our right to cover public court proceedings (and in the case of “in camera” cases like rape, we stand for the public who aren’t allowed in out of deference to the sensitivity of the evidence.

Justice is supposed to be done in public and that means that the general public should be able to read it when it comes wrapping their fish and chips, or listen to it or watch it. It’s a pretty basic right and it’s mixed up in a person’s right to a fair trial. It’s important.

Which makes it so irritating when the powers that be don’t seem to understand this. There is a definite attitude out there that the media are vermin who should be at the very least discouraged, at worst banned entirely.

Last year a debate took place, I think, in the Sugar Club in Dublin. It was organised by one of the legal organisations and the motion was whether or not the media were out of control. I don’t have the full details because the media were not invited. Not one of the journalists who work in the Four Courts on a daily basis was invited and the owners of the two new agencies are there on a permanent basis were not even informed. Only one poster went up and that was on the day of the debate itself.

We heard about it over the next few days though. Apparently the event was mainly attended by newly qualified barristers who did not think much of the media as a whole. The one account that appeared in the press (which I’ve been unable to locate but will post if I ever do) described a baying mob calling for the media’s blood in the wake of the sensationalist coverage of trials like Joe O’Reilly and Brian Kearney.

OK the coverage has got somewhat lurid on some occasions but that’s the nature of the press. When that has happened editors have been called in and knuckles have been rapped by the judge. But that’s obviously not enough for some people.

I get on well with a lot of barristers and court staff who I’ve got to know over the past couple of years. We all understand that we each have a role to play and it’s easier to do that if everyone plays nicely together. Apart from anything else, when you’ve waited hours upon hours for juries to come back the barriers tend to come down.

But some of the younger barristers treat us with suspicion and some of the Courts Service staff treat us like cockroaches. Getting some information or facilities can be like getting blood out of a stone. Almost any journalist I know who has had occasion to deal with different justice systems has stories about how wonderful it is to deal with press offices anywhere else. When I was researching Devil I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get court documents in the U.S. Here we’re dependent on the whims of the individual teams.

It’s easy to feel as if we are only allowed in on sufferance. The absence of press benches wasn’t an oversight it was simply because someone felt then, as now, that the media didn’t have a place in the courts.

And just to make it very clear. I’m not hitting out at any of the wonderful staff who help get my job done on a daily basis. This is just something that exists underlying things. An attitude that seems to be fairly endemic in certain quarters. This is a rant about that perception. If it’s allowed to spread it could be very damaging not only to the Irish media but also to Irish justice. Justice needs to be done in public, as does politics but that’s another matter entirely. We forget that at our peril.

Disembodied Voices Mark a New Era in the Courts…

11th February 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I was meeting a friend for lunch today and ended up meeting her in the Four Courts where she was on a jury wait in the Brian Rattigan trial. Things were running late for lunch as the jury had asked to hear some of the testimony given in the trial during their deliberations. It’s not an unusual occurrence. A jury can ask for a recap of any piece of evidence if they feel it will help them come to their decision.

As I stuck my head around the door of the courtroom I could hear an unfamiliar voice speaking. Normally evidence is read out by the trial judge from the transcript of the trial or from his own notes taken during the evidence the first time round. For the last few months however the Courts Service have been trialing a new recording system.

It’s been running in Court 1 since the middle of last year but has only recently been introduced into Court 2 as well. The system runs alongside the transcript made by the stenographer, but will eventually replace them. I gather that a similar system is already running in New Zealand.

Here in Ireland it’s a decidedly high tech innovation – up until a year or so ago even watching CCTV footage meant wheeling in a television that would be positioned opposite the jury and plugged into a video. We have a more up to date system now but as I say, it’s a pretty recent introduction.

In the courts where the recording is in operation there’s a large red digital clock on the desk in front of the stenographer facing out into the courtroom. All the principal players, the judge, the barristers and the witnesses speak into microphones that feed into a black box recorder.

Today was the first time I had ever heard the results. I was surprised at how clear the recording was, almost broadcast quality. Clearer, thanks to the amplification provided by the microphones, than hearing evidence from someone sitting in front of you in the old somewhat acoustically challenged courtrooms.

It sounded bizarrely like a radio play. Everyone sat in rapt attention as the drama of that particular piece of evidence was played out once again. I couldn’t help wondering what Mr Justice Barry White was thinking as his voice filled the courtroom in answer to something the now absent witness had said. It’s a slightly surreal situation.

Of course recordings are played in trials all the time. We watch hours of CCTV footage and it’s not unusual to see the videos of an accused persons interviews with the gardai. But these recordings are all of somewhat dubious quality. You frequently have to strain to hear the mumbled questions of the gardai off mike in the interview room.

The new digital service provided by Fujitsu is a whole different kettle of fish. It’s the kind of quality you’d expect from digital and having an audio recording of proceedings will mean no question of human error creeping into transcripts (not that that happens at the moment in any major way).

However, as exciting as all this new technology may be – it really is very, very clear – it’s unlikely to change the journalist’s job of covering court proceedings. While digital recordings and transcripts will be available for judges and counsel in cases we will have the same chance of getting hold of them as usual (about the same as a snowball in hell).

It also doesn’t have anything to do with the debate about whether or not to allow tv cameras into Irish courts. It also won’t affect note taking for those of us not fortunate enough to see the transcripts (when you work in the Four Courts you suddenly realise why shorthand is taught in journalism courses).

All it is is part of the modernisation of the court proceedings here – a process that will get another boost when the new criminal court building by the Phoenix Park opens next year. I love the old Four Courts complex with it’s James Gandon designed courtrooms but the modern kit is quite impressive and even with a structure as old and traditional as the legal profession, time has to move on.

Another Sentence Controversy in the Irish Courts…

29th January 2009 / Abigail / 6 Comments

Yesterday 45-year-old Philip Sullivan learned that the life sentence he had received for the rape and violent sexual assault of two young boys had been over turned. The Court of Criminal Appeal once again decided to go on the light side when it came to the sentence a convicted sex offender should serve.

Sullivan will now serve 12 1/2 years of a 15 year sentence. He’ll probably be out sooner than that. As a prisoner under Irish law he’s entitled to an automatic quarter off his sentence and today he Minister for Justice announced that he would wouldn’t be touching this automatic entitlement any time soon.

In fairness this isn’t all that much sooner than he’d be back on the streets if the life sentence had been left intact. The average length of jail time for Irish life sentences is about twelve years. That includes those who received mandatory life sentences for murder.

The subject of minimum sentences has been buzzing around for years and there are arguments on both sides. Certainly sitting in court on a regular basis and watching the sentences handed down I’ve often heard Judge Paul Carney voice his displeasure of the Court of Criminal Appeal’s tendency to knock down the more punitive sentences to an arguably lenient average.

Take the Sullivan case. I covered that sentence last year and the story was immediately the fact that a life sentence had been handed down and the speculation about whether it would stick. This was a particularly nasty case. Sullivan was in a position of trust as a caretaker to an apartment building. He was a repeat offender. The victims were only nine and eleven years old and his crimes were of a particularly nasty type.

The guy is a predatory paedophile who had served time on previous occasions and yet went on to abuse these two boys over a period of over two years. 12 and a half years just doesn’t seem enough.

With the Finn Colclough sentence there was some surprise when the figure turned out to be ten years. Quite a few of those in the press bench had been speculating a lower figure. The sentence for manslaughter can be anything from a suspended sentence to life. It seems to average out at around seven or eight years. Wayne O’Donoghue served three for the accidental killing of 11-year-old Robert Holohan.

Rape sentences are usually in and around eight years but have notably been a lot less. Adam Keane hit the headlines in 2007 after his three year suspended sentence for rape was activated and subsequently extended by the Court of Criminal Appeal to seven years after it emerged he had made a triumphalist gesture at his victim as they caught the same train home.

That’s another trial I followed and coincidentally yet another sentence handed down by Mr Justice Paul Carney. Looking back on the cases I’ve cited here they’re all his sentences. He’s often quoted as making side swipes at the CCA as he hands down sentence and it’s easy to see why. He’s the most vocal of the judges who dislike having their sentences more often than not reduced.

I’ve often wondered if some of the more lenient sentences he imposes are there to make a point on the assumption that they’ll end up the standard length on appeal. The Adam Keane sentence would fall into that category.

But back to the subject of minimum time served. I noticed another news story this evening while I was checking the rss feeds on my phone. A judge ruled today that a man who raped and murdered a women should serve at least twenty two years in jail. As soon as I saw the headline I knew it wasn’t an Irish story. No matter how bad the crime, here a judge won’t be able to say how much of a life sentence the accused should serve. Sure enough it was a court in Belfast.

Mandatory minimum sentences do exist under Irish law but only in very specific circumstances. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence but as I’ve already said that can end up meaning as little as twelve years. Some drug sentences have mandatory minimums but that’s about it.

Covering rape after rape after rape and seeing traumatised women watch their attacker walk off to serve a sentence that doesn’t usually even hit double digits, it’s hard not to be in favour of minimum sentences. Rape is considered serious enough to be dealt with by the Central Criminal Court, the highest criminal court in the country. But the sentences don’t always reflect that. Of course every case is different but the average sentences for sexual offences in this country tend to be pathetically low.

I’m generally madly here but it’s something that you see again and again. A man who stole the childhood of his now adult victim gets a pitiful couple of years compared with the lifetime of damage he’s inflicted. Those who have held a woman against her will, terrorised her, traumatised her get a sentence in single figures once all the mitigating factors are taken into account. I’ve watched trials that would fit these descriptions and each of them has helped to make up my mind on this one.

The subject of sentencing is always going to be a minefield, once again by virtue of the fact that each case must be judged by it’s own merits but as long as stories keep appearing that this one has been released early or that one had their sentence reduced on appeal it’s going to feel as if an attitude exists that sex crimes are somehow less serious.

I wouldn’t be in favour of mandatory life for any rape conviction but there should be some that deserve the same automatic penalty as murder. In the meantime these stories will keep cropping up and the perception that you can commit a crime in Ireland and be out in a flash will prevail.

The Books

Tags