The jury in the trial of a garda on sex assault charges was discharged after an outburst by the alleged victim who also stormed out of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Judge Kieran O'Connor made an order that the case was not to be relisted for trial unless there was a psychiatric report declaring the woman capable of giving evidence at a hearing.
The now 20-year-old woman had to be restrained by gardai and prison officers when she stormed out of the witness box following the outburst at Judge O'Connor and defence counsel Mr Brendan Grogan SC. She kicked the dock partition and shouted into the face of the accused. She then crashed through the door of Court 29 into the corridor and could still be heard shouting insults as she left the area.
The 40-year-old Dublin-based garda, who was the woman's landlord, denied two charges of sexually assaulting her in her flat in a house in Rialto on June 9th, 1997. The woman told the jury of eight women and four men she was an epileptic and had had a seizure shortly before the trial began.
She also said she had attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on at least three occasions due to pressure from family problems. Judge O'Connor adjourned the hearing for some minutes after her outburst which came during cross-examination by Mr Grogan in the afternoon session. The hearing resumed later in the absence of the jury when the woman returned to the witness box.
She was still in an agitated condition while Judge O'Connor spoke with her for a few minutes before Mr Grogan made an application for the discharge of the jury.
Mr Grogan said he was concerned "her histrionics would endanger the possibility of a fair trial" for his client. He said the woman had shown no respect for the court process and his client was "deeply upset" by her behaviour.
Prosecuting counsel Mr Fergal Kavanagh objected to the application for the discharge of the jury and said some allowance had to be made for the woman's medical condition due to her epilepsy and nervous disposition. He said her situation demanded understanding. She had been under tremendous stress and the question was whether a woman of such frailty could be a prosecutrix in this type of case.
Judge O'Connor said he had no option but to discharge the jury. He said he had "bent over backwards" to help her during her examination by Mr Kavanagh and cross-examination by Mr Grogan but she had declared she trusted nobody, including him. He said he was afraid she was going to strike the accused in the dock before she "nearly took the court door off its hinges". The Director of Public Prosecutions had to make a decision about the case in the future.
Judge O'Connor then told the jury members he was discharging them from the trial because he didn't consider the woman was in a fit condition to proceed. Her behaviour could have "an adverse effect" on their minds by introducing other elements to the case which should not be there.
He told the jury he was making an order, which the Director of Public Prosecutions might not like and might want to appeal, that the case was not to be listed for retrial without a psychiatric report on the woman's fitness. Judge O'Connor also told the jury that Mr Grogan had approached her like "a perfect gentleman" in his cross-examination and had not in any way been oppressive towards the woman. "Neither counsel provoked her conduct here in any way."
Earlier, the woman claimed the offences happened after she had been in a Rialto pub with the accused to buy cigarettes. She said she had gone to the pub with him just to get "rid of him" from her flat to which he had come some time earlier. She said she made coffee for him at his request and then laughed at him and told him she thought he was drunk from the way he stood and spoke. She became afraid of the way he was "hanging about" her flat and giving out about some of his other tenants in the house.
At one stage he brought back two cigarettes for them from his Mercedes car. When they finished those cigarettes he asked her where they could get more and she suggested the pub to get him out of the flat. She said they walked to and from the pub.
The court also heard the accused denied returning to the flat with her and claimed in his statement they drove to and from the pub. He told gardai he dropped her off on their return and then went to his Co Kildare home where his wife was waiting to go out for a drink with him.