Appeal brought against ruling keeping dog alleged to have bitten garda in professional kennels

A High Court judge’s ruling that a dog accused of biting a garda must remain with a professional kennel operator until an application to put the animal down is determined is to be appealed.

Earlier this month Mr Justice Garrett Simons held that it was in “the public interest” that the dog, a black Belgian Shepherd described as being highly dangerous and aggressive, remain “incarcerated” pending the rehearing of an application to the District Court to have it euthanised.

The dog is owned by Kevin O’Keefe, with an address at Oliver Bond Flats in Dublin 2, who is serving a 2½-year sentence in Mountjoy Prison.

Serving a sentence

O’Keefe launched a judicial review hearing against the Garda Commissioner, challenging the District Court’s decision to have his dog, known as Theo — also known as Cleo and also known as Deo — put down for biting a garda when the applicant was being arrested.

Supermarket wines: Two great Italian wines to try

---

Brendan O’Connor brings his contrary streak to a cosy conversation about immigration

---

John FitzGerald: An attempt to buy the next election with a giveaway budget would be a gross miscalculation

---

US student protests: Democrats are worried this is 1968 again

---

The applicant rejects claims that the dog bit the garda and brought High Court proceedings claiming the District Court’s decision was flawed and in breach of fair procedures.

The commissioner’s lawyers agreed that the decision should be set aside and remitted back to the District Court for a fresh determination.

However, in his ruling on that issue, the judge rejected O’Keefe’s bid to have the dog released from the kennels and put in the care of one of his relations pending re-hearing before the District Court.

That decision is being appealed by the applicant to the Court of Appeal.

In a follow-up ruling on Wednesday, the judge dismissed O’Keefe’s application for a stay on his order keeping the dog at the kennels pending the outcome of the intended appeal.

The judge said that a ground of appeal raised by the applicant, that the High Court was wrong in its finding that the District Court can hear evidence about the dog’s behaviour in the kennels when that court rehears the matter, is not stateable.

The judge also rejected O’Keefe’s bid that he was entitled to at least some of his legal costs in an action where both sides had been partially successful.

While the destruction order had been quashed, the judge said that the applicant had failed on the legal issue which had taken up most of the hearing time.

The fairest solution, said the judge, was to make no order regarding the costs, meaning that both sides would have to bear their own costs of the proceedings.

Previously the High Court heard that last January O’Keefe was arrested by gardaí at his home, on foot of a bench warrant issued by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

During the arrest, it is alleged that a garda was attacked and bitten by the dog, which was seized and placed in professionally run kennels.

‘Dangerous dog’

A complaint about the dog was made by a garda, under the 1986 Control of Dogs Act, to the District Court, which ordered that the animal be destroyed.

O’Keefe in his judicial review action claimed that he was not given the required seven days’ notice of the garda’s application to the District Court for the destruction order. He also said that the District Court was wrong not to allow him to attend that hearing.

After the commissioner decided not to contest the application to set aside the destruction order O’Keefe asked the High Court to release the dog into the care of his cousin.

The commissioner, represented by Frank Kennedy, opposed that application on public safety grounds.

The judge said a vet’s report agreed that the animal is ”a dangerous dog.”

Any decision to destroy the animal was ultimately a decision for the District Court, he added.