A MAN who sought to halt his trial because CCTV footage of his alleged crime is no longer available has lost his application after a High Court judge ruled that evidence from a garda who was monitoring the CCTV cameras at the time is admissible.
Mr Justice John Hedigan said a garda viewing an incident on CCTV was akin to someone looking through binoculars or through “a special window”.
He was dismissing proceedings by John Stirling, Clondalkin, Dublin, who is charged with criminal damage and public order offences arising out of an alleged incident at Aston Quay, Dublin, early on March 3rd, 2009.
It is claimed that a garda monitoring the Pearse Street station CCTV saw a group of young people allegedly kicking a telephone box and various windows, and communicated what he saw to officers on the ground, who subsequently arrested Mr Stirling in Temple Bar.
After a District Court judge refused an application to dismiss the charges against Mr Stirling on grounds that the CCTV footage was no longer available, Mr Stirling brought his High Court judicial review proceedings.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Hedigan said the loss of the footage should not have occurred, and was “indicative of a certain inefficiency on the part of gardaí” over the proper storage of this type of evidence.
However, the missing footage was not fatal to this case which could not be regarded as a usual “missing evidence” matter, he said. It was now possible for gardaí to see “far beyond the field of vision to which they would normally be limited”, as if they were looking through “a special window or through binoculars”. The garda monitoring the cameras could be questioned about the accuracy of his recall, acuity of his view, quality of the picture and his opportunity to observe, the judge said.