Trial of Tipperary hurler to start days before championship match

Tipperary hurling goalkeeper Darren Gleeson is due to go on trial on theft charges at the end of June, just days before his county are due to play an All-Ireland qualifier match.

An All-Ireland winner, the 35-year-old, of Shesharoe, Portroe, Co Tipperary, denies two counts of stealing a total of €32,000 from a Timothy Heenan in 2013, and two alternate counts of obtaining the same monies by deception.

He played on the Tipperary team which lost to Cork in the Munster first round in Thurles last month.

An application by his barrister Johnny Walshe to have the trial adjourned until October, because of media coverage the last time it was listed at Nenagh Circuit Court, was refused by Judge Thomas Teehan, who said "the matter proceeds" in the week of June 27th.

Mr Walshe BL said “a number of difficulties” have arisen, including the fact that the prosecution have engaged senior counsel to try the case. “I don’t have a senior counsel,” he said. “I’m on legal aid, the first application should be that the legal aid should be extended to include senior counsel now that the State have engaged senior counsel to prosecute the case.”

In relation to media coverage of the case the first time it was listed for trial in Nenagh earlier in the year, Mr Walshe said “some offending media has been taken down” from the internet but not all.

The accused’s solicitor wrote to the media outlets asking that the coverage in question be removed to their websites, he said, but as of Wednesday morning “the same offending article comes up”.

He said the “fade factor” remains because of this, and asked for an adjournment of the trial until October.

Justin Dillon SC, prosecuting, said he has a handwriting expert witness who will not be available in October, and asked that the case be listed for the last week of the current sessions in Nenagh, starting June 27th.

He said it’s a “fact of life” that there will be pieces on the internet, but jurors can be told to disregard anything they read online about a case. “More than that, we cannot do. Otherwise no trial could go ahead because they do appear on the internet.”

Judge Teehan acceded to Mr Walshe’s application to extend the legal aid certificate to include a senior counsel for the defence. He adjourned the case until June 27th, saying the jury can be given “appropriate directions” about disregarding anything going on “in the background” and the inadvisability of “consulting outside sources” during the trial.